THE 



LIFE AND CHOICE WRITINGS 



GEORGE LIPPARD. 



WITH A PORTRAIT, AND FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF A LETTER WRITTEN 
IN THE EARLY PART OF HIS ILLNESS. 




**IJko Bomo Iute-utt*^re(l miiBlc too Rweet foi' IhU eartb, 
Like ft rainbow tint fipjirkles on day 
Bat to fado In Ihn hour of Its radiant worlli— 
Ab, tbug hath ho faded away I" — Wii.i.iam Rose Waixaob. 



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P IT R T. 1 S H E D BY II . II . RANDALL, 

so ANN HTi: K KT. 
1850. 



75 xx4-^ 



Entered, according to Art of Congress, in the year 1855, by 

H. H. RANDALL, 

in Uie Clerk's OfRt^p of the District Court of tI;o Unitrrt States for the Southern District of New York. 



DAVncS AND EOBKU'IS, STEEEOTYPKR8, 

201 WiUlam Street, N. Y 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Birth of our Author 7 

" Old-Time Graveyard" 8 

Germs of Patriotism 9 

Death of his Parents 10 

The Old Homestead 11 

Studies Theology 12 

A Funny Incident 13 

Lives alone in an Old House 14 

Among the Law Books 15 

Debut as a Writer .• 16 

" The Ladye Annabel" 17 

Motives in Writing " The Quaker City" 18 

The Hornet's Nest 19 

" Quaker City" Dramatized. Almost a Riot 20 

" Devil-Bug" and Phantoms 21 

Do-svn to the Pit of Monk-hall 22 

Devil-Bug's Remorse. A Thought of God 23 

Sunset on Christmas Eve 24, 25 

The Prophecy Fulfilled 26 

Death of the Betrayer 27 

" Washington and his Generals" 28 

" Remember Paoli" 29-32 

The Attack on Quebec 33-86 

Nathan Hale 37-41 

An Eloquent Essay 42 

Prose-Poetry 43 

A FuU-Length Picture of Lippard 44 

His Youthful Love 45 

Romantic Marriage by Moonlight .*,..>... 46 

" The Legends of Mexico" 47 

Monterey 48-55 

Paul Ardenheim in a Revcry 56 

Lippard a Stump Speaker. A Dramatist 57 

Infancy of the Brotherhood 58 

Principles of the Brotherhood 59-61 

Lippard's Fitness for his OflBce 62 

The S. W.'s Address for 1850 63-65 

Affection of his Friends 66 

Death of his Children and Sister 67 

Dsath of his Wife , 68 

" The AVhitc Banner" 69 



VI CONTENTS. 

Leaves Philadelphia for the West 70 

"The Other World." 71 

Despondency 72 

Lippard's Oratory — 73 

His Labors for the Brotherhood 74 

Peculiarities of his Handwriting 75 

Engraving of Part of a Letter in which he records a Foreboding of his Death 7G, 77 

Sitting on the Lake Shore - 78 

Lippard as a Story-Teller. " Fresh Wa-arrer" 79 

Lippard and a Pennsylvania Farmer 80 

Guarding a Stone-heap — A Tale of the Militia 81 

As an Actor and Mimic 82 

Lippard and Spiritualism 83 

His View of Clirist 84-86 

The Poor Man 87,88 

" Religion." 89 

Christian Spirit of his Writings 90 

Convocation of Supreme Circle, 1851 91 

Names of Officers of Supreme Circle and G. E. W.'s elected in 1851 92 

Revisits the West 93 

A Trip to Frcdericksburgh, Va. , by invitation 94 

A Toast to the Revolving Pistol .' 95 

Lippard's Style 96,97 

The Valley of the Brandy wine 98 

A Pleasant Country Scene 99 

The Wissahikon 100 

The Battle Eve. The Red Cross in Philadelphia 101 

The Bible Legend of the Wissahikon 102-104 

The Preacher-General 105-107 

His Style. Hebrew Poetry 108 

The Champion of AVoman 109 

The " Unpardonable Crime." 110 

A Pretty Picture - Ill 

A Buxom Landlady 112 

The Hero-AVoman 113-115 

A few Months in New York 116 

Goes to Lake Superior „ 117 

Descent of the Falls 118 

Philadelphia again. Visits the Graves of his Lost Ones 119 

His Last Illness 120 

Visits from Spiritualists. His Pecuniary Circumstances 121 

AVasting away 122 

His Death 123 

" Home again." 124 

The Obsequies of the Dead 125 

Suggestions concerning a Monument 126 

Lipp.ard's Books and the Future 127 

The Future and Brotherhood 128 



LIFE AND CHOICE WRITINGS 



GEORGE LIPPARD. 



The subject of these memoirs was born near Yellow Springs, Chester 
County, Pennsylvania, April 10th, 1822. 

In his infancy, at a very tender age, his family removed to German- 
town, a quaint old village famous in history, about six miles from 
Philadelphia. 

The vicinity of Germantown is identified with some of the most tragi- 
cal events of the Revolution, and not far away rolls the Wissahikon, whose 
beauties and historic glories the future author was to publish to the world. 
The effect wrought upon the tender mind of the youthful Lippard by the 
neighborhood of these memorable localities must have been powerful. 
We can imagine him drinking in, with almost his earliest consciousness, 
many a strange story narrated by garrulous 'old gossips in a chimney- 
corner, to be used at a later period as the foundation of his graphic 
" Legends of the Revolution." 

The ancestors of our author were among the earliest settlers of Penn. 
sylvania, of sturdy German stock. Their more famous descendant was 
justly proud of his lineage, as maybe gathered by the following eloquent 
description of " The Old-Time Graveyard" in Germantown, in which the 
ashes of his forefathers were reverently laid by each generation : 

THE GRAVEYARD OF GERMANTOWN. 

In Germantown there is an old-time graveyard. No graveled walks, no delicato 
Bculpturlngs of marble, no hot-beds planted over corruption are there. It is an old- 



8 " OLD-TIME GRAVEYARD." 

time graveyard, defended from the highway and encircling fields by a thick stone 
wall. On the north and west it is shadowed by a range of trees, the somber verdure 
of the pine, the leafy magnificence of the maple and horse-chestnut, mingling in one 
rich mass of foliage. Wild flowers are in that graveyard, and tangled vines. It is 
white with tombstones. They spring up, lilic a host of spirits, from the green graves ; 
they seem to stiuggle with each other for space, for room. The lettering on these 
tombstones is in itself a rude history. Some are marked with rude words in Dutch, 
some in German, one or more in Latin, one in Indian; others in English. Some bend 
down, as if hiding their rugged faces from the light ; some start to one side ; here and 
there rank grass chokes them from the light and air. 

You may talk to me of your fashionable graveyards, where Death is made to look 
pretty and silly and fanciful, but for me this one old graveyard, with its rank grass 
and crowded tombstones, has more of God and Immortality in it than all your 
elegant cemeteries together. I love its soil ; its stray wild flowers are omens to me 
of a pleasant sleep taken by weary ones who were faint with living too long. 

It is to me a holy thought, that here my bones will one day repose. For here, in 
a lengthening line, extend the tombstones sacred to the memory of my fathers, far 
back in to time. They sleep here. The summer day may dawn, the winter storm 
may howl, and still they sleep on. No careless eye looks over these walls. There is 
no gaudiness of sculpture to invite the lounger. As for a pic-nic party in an old 
graveyard like this, it would be blasphemy. None come save those who have friends 
here. Sisters come to talk quietly with the ghost of sisters ; children to invoke the 
spirit of that Mother gojie hojne ; I, too, sometimes, panting to get free from the city, 
come here to talk with my sisters — for two of mine are here — with my father — for 
that clover blooms above his grave. 

It seems to me, too, when bending over that grave, that the Mother's form, 
awakened from her distant grave, beneath the sod of Delaware, is also here! — here, 
to commune with the dead whom she loved while living ; here, with the spirits of my 
fathers ! 

I can not get rid of the thought that good spirits love that graveyard. For all at 
once, when you enter its walls, you feel sadder, better; more satisfied with life, yet 
less reluctant to die. It is such a pleasant spot to take a long repose. I have seen 
it in winter, when there was snow upon the graves and the sleigh-bells tinkled in the 
street. Then calmly and tenderly upon the white tombstones played and lingered 
the cold moon. 

In summer, too, when the leaves were on the trees and the grass upon the sod, 
when the chirp of the cricket and katy-did broke shrilly over the graves through the 
silence of night. In early spring, when there was scarce a blade of grass to struggle 
against the north wind ; and late in fall, when November baptizes you with her cloud 
of gloom, I have been there. 

And in winter and summer, in fall and spring, in calm or storm, in sickness or health, 
in every change of this great play, called life, does my heart go out to that grave- 
yard, as though part of it was already there. 

Nor do I love it the less because on every blade of grass, in every flower that 
wildly blooms there, you find written : "This soil is sacred from creeds. Here rests 
the Indian and the white man ; here sleep in one sod the Catholic, Presbyterian, 
Quaker, Methodist, Lutheran, Mennonist, Deist, Infidel. Here, creeds forgotten, all 
arc men and women again, and not one but is a simple child of God." 



GEEMS OF PATRIOTISM. \f 

This graveyard was established by men of all creeds, more than a century ago. 
May that day be darkness when creeds shall enter this rude gate. Better had that 
man never been born who shall dare pollute this soil with the earthly clamor of sect. 
But on the man who shall repair this wall, or keep this graveyard sacred from the 
hoofs of improvement, who shall do his best to keep our old graveyard what it is, on 
that man be the blessings of God ; may his daughters be virtuous and beautiful, his 
sons gifted and brave. In his last hours may the voices of angels sing hymns to his 
passing soul. If there was but one flower in the world, I would plant it on that man's 
grave. 

It was in November, not in chill, gloomy November, but in golden November, when 
Paradise opens her windows to us and wafts the Indian Summer over the land, that 
I came to the graveyard. 

There was a mellow softness in the air, a golden glow upon the sky, glossy, gor- 
geous richness of foliage on the trees, when I went in. It was in the afternoon. 
The sun was half-way down the sky. Every thing was still. A religious silence 
dwelt all about the graveyard. 

It is to this long identification of the Lippard family with American 
government, American manners, and American principles, that the intense 
Americanism of George Lippard may be mainly attributed. He not 
merely loved his country — he adored it. His patriotism was far dilTerent 
from the purchaseable stuff that crowds the political market about elec- 
tion times. It was no result of a conversion at the eleventh hour, just 
in time to get comfortably into the heaven of party power and government 
plunder. Nor was it the rosy imagining of a poet's dream — an insane 
frenzy that spent its force upon paper and evaporated in words. It was 
a part of his soul, his heart, his bones, muscles, blood. His very being 
was full of it. To modify its intensity, you would have had to remodel 
the man ; and nothing but death could have extinguished its warm and 
radiant glow. This may seem exaggeration; but to those who have hung 
over the burning pages of " Washington and his Generals," " Washington 
and his Men," " The Battle-day of Germantown," the " Legends of 
Mexico," and others of Lippard's well-known works, we appeal as Avit- 
nesses. Every word is evidence of his sincere, impassioned patriotism. 
To those, alas ! who enjoyed the pleasure of his acquaintance, who talked, 
walked, rode, wrote, lived, and loved with him, any imputation against the 
honesty of his convictions would be the grossest insult to their own judg- 
ment and to the memory of their departed friend. He has done more 
than any man living to direct our reverent attention to the past, to revive 
and vindicate the illustrious deeds of the immortal founders of our Re- 
public, and to impress upon the youthful heart a lesson of honor, courage, 
and self-sacrifice in our country's cause. 

Of Mr. Lippard's earliest childhood we have little to tell. He went 



10 DEATH OF HIS PARENTS. 

to school of course, like other boys, and acquired the rudiments of an 
English education. From what we knew of his ambition and powers of 
memory, and his habits of acquirement in after-life, we judge that he was 
no idler or truant at school. But the precepts of instructors and the cold 
formalities of text-books had little to do with the structure of that strange 
imaginative mind of his. We fancy that his sharp gray eyes took more 
lessons and better ones from the blue heavens, the waving woods, the 
calm church-yard to which his recollection in after-life so fondly reverted, 
than all the musty school-books expounded by all the inexorable school- 
masters in the world could teach. We fancy that the winding Wissahi- 
kon, with its huge overhanging crags and dark flashing waters, was one 
of the best tutors of his infancy. Roaming upon its banks, plucking 
flowers that grew along its dangerous margin, and listlessly flinging 
pebbles into its foaming bosom, were in him no tokens of vagrancy, 
but proofs of his early love of nature and his thoughtful self-com- 
munion. 

Mr. Lippard's father (a farmer by occupation) was a man of strong 
natural powers. His son derived from him much of that energy and de- 
cision of character that accompanied him through life. His father had a 
very fair property, and, if not rich, was well to do in the world. 

Both of his parents were members of the Methodist Church, and devout 
Christians. They designed their son George for the ministry, and much 
of his early training was conducted with this object in view. His mother 
was a woman of great gentleness and purity of character. Her life was, 
above all, a religious one. It is to his mother's example more than to 
any other cause, that we attribute the high, poetical Christian fervor that 
pervaded Lippard's entire history. One of the earliest incidents we learn 
of him illustrates the effect of this youthful religious education. At the 
age of ten or twelve years he got together his boyish companions into 
prayer meetings, and conducted the services with a religious earnestness 
and decorum that might happily be imitated by " children of a larger 
growth." 

At an age when he could not appreciate the bereavement, an irreparable 
misfortune befell him in the loss of his father and mother. He and his 
three sisters — Sarah, Mary, and Harriet — were left in the charge of two 
maiden aunts — Catherine and Mary — both of whom are now living in 
Philadelphia. To those who are disposed to judge harshly of his future 
career we commend this reflection, that before he arrived at years of dis- 
cretion and self-reliance he was left an orphan — that he inherited little, 
if any, property, from his family — that he was tossed upon active life at 



THE OLD HOMESTEAD. 11 

ati age when boys require the most careful home discipline, and with th^t 
iarge brain and fiery heart of his — 

" The world before him whflre to choose, 
And Providence his guide." 

But the loss of his father and mother was not the only bitter cup. 
Other family misfortunes followed, upon which we have not space to 
-enter. Suflice it to say, that he and his sisters found themselves dispos- 
sessed of the " old homestead." It seems to have been a fair and pleasant 
place, according to this beautiful description from his "White Banner :" 



1^^ 
^^^n 



THE DESTROYER OF THE HOMESTEAD. 

It was a pleasant place that old Homestead, and though it is gone from us forever, 

e thought of it remains to me, and will not pass away. Lands jou may mortgage, 
Vind stone and mortar you may sell, but the thought of one's Home — the memory of a 
dear olJ Homestead— is beyond the reach of the vultures of the Law. God be thanked, 
you can not mortgage that — the memory of the Homestead. I see it now ; the house 
which stood near the road, tlie garden and the barn, with a glimpse of orchard trees 
back the laue. The house was of gray-stone, only two stories high — and there was 
moss upon its roof. It v.as full of old-fashioned rooms, with thick walls and narrow 
winJows — an unpretending sort of place, and yet the breath of the Past blows on me 
whenever I fancy myself in those old-fashioned rooms. And sometimes I think I hear 
the oil clock striking deep and clear, as it used to strike when the Homestead was 
ours. Behind the house stood the barn with a pear tree near it ; it was of dark gray- 
Btone like the house, and its walls were thrown into view by the garden which 
stretched behind it, toward the orchard. The garden was sacred to memory. Even 
the trough which sunk into the ground, at one side of the garden, was filled to the 
brim with the pure cold water of an over-welling spring — even the trough made of 
the trunk of a forest tree, and shaded by a thick growth of shrubbery • -even that is 
sacreJ, The orchard, too, with its trees, beneath whose roots men of the battle- 
field were buried — the orchard, how a breeze from the Past tosses the fragrance from 
the white blossoms of the apple trees, scatters those blossoms over me even now, when 
the Homestead has gone from us forever ! And even that, our orchard, was not sacred 
from the Destroyer of the Homestead. 

Now, you who like to read of battles — of scenes of magnificent interests, where 
nations are engaged and empire is the stake — can not think how many interests clus- 
tered about our Homestead. So many of our name were born in that old house,- eo 
many died there. The walk that led through the garden to the orchard was trod by 
the pv;ople of four generations^ father and son, for four generations, drank from the 
waters of the trough-bound spring. They are gone now — neffrly all of them — and 
the graveyard where they sleep is not far away. I can remember the white hairs of 
an tld man who used to take me by the hand when I was a little child — I can remem- 
ber the face of a mother when she was young and beautiful, before the paleness 
over^pread her cheek and the grave-cough was heard — I can remember how again 
and again, as years passed on, we met in the graveyard, around a new-made grave. 

But I can not distinctly remember how the old Homestead passed away. It seems 
hard to me, when I look over the broad earth of God, that this old house, the bit of 



12 STUDIES TnEOLOGY. 

land, could not be spared from the clutch of land sharper and mortgage hunter. And 
when escaping for an hour from the city I go first to the graveyard, and count how 
many of us are there^ — and then back to the lane, and see how speculation has cut our 
orchard up into building lots— why, I have queer thoughts about the fate of the 
Destroyer of the Homestead. 

I think I could sit down with a murderer, and be cheerful with him sooner than I 
could endure the sight of the Destroyer of the Homestead : for he is a murderer of 
something more than flesh and blood. And yet I can not tell precisely in what shape 
he came to blast our Homestead, whether as a land robber simply, or as a professional 
sharper, swindling with a law paper instead of a dice-box ; or yet as a seemingly 
pious man, blasting the family whose table had fed, whose roof had sheltered him. 
My memory is dim ; I was but a child then ; but the Record is written somewhere — 
and it is, may be, a Record that one day will bring Retribution. And I do not wish 
to know his name or look upon his face : the world has many paths, but I never wish 
mine to fork with the path traversed by the Destroyer of the Homestead. May God 
forgive him. ' 

For look you — it was our Home. Not big enough to excite envy ; an humble sort 
of home ; not large enough or rich enough (so one would think) to excite cupidity ; a 
stone house, a barn, a garden, an orchard — it might have been spared. The hoof 
of the Destroyer might have found another resting-place. 

But we will go back to the Homestead, though it has gone into other hands. There 
are but few of us now ; on our way to the grave we will rest under the old apple 
trees and drink of the garden spring. See ! How they group around us once more 
— the old man with white hairs, his children, the father, and the mother, and their 
grandchildren, who are sisters — as the sun shines above us, the family is complete 
again ! Drink once more of the clean spring water — sit awhile under the orchard 
trees — and then come into the house, and let us hear the old clock strike again^and 
your voices, how tone after tone those well-remembered accents ring through the 

Home ! 

— Only a dream. That is all. But a pleasant sort of dream to dream, as I sit 
alone, with the moon shining through the window. And I'd sooner dream this dream 
than to have the gnawing thoughts of the Destroyer of the Homestead, 

As Lippard did not see fit to state who the " destroyer of the home- 
stead" was, it is not our province to make the surmise. 

We next hear of our author (about sixteen years of age) in the family 
of a Methodist clergyman residing in Dutchess Co., New York. He had 
been placed there by some of his friends, by way of preparation for the 
ministry. The reverend gentleman was in the habit of taking private 
pupils for this purpose. Lippard seems to have entered upon his theo- 
logical studies with his usual ardor. He studied the Bible with enthu- 
siasm. The poetry, the majesty, the prophetic grandeur of the Old Tes- 
tament especially charmed him at this time. He was ambitious to acquire 
a knowledge of the Hebrew tongue, which was taught, among the other 
rudiments of biblical learning, by his pious instructor. His ear was 
caught by the deep, splendid roll of that patriarchal language. He loved 



A FUNNY INCIDENT. IS 

to sit and trace, with patient, backward-moving finger the meaning of 
those strange, mystic characters in which the revelation of a God was 
first made to man. This passage from " Paul Ardenheim" evidently has 
reference to these absorbing prelections : 

Near his elbow was another volume ; it was open, and its broad pages bore the 
bold, firm characters of the Hebrew tongue. It was the Bible — the Old Testament 
and the New in one language — which Paul had read for years ; the only copy of the 
Book which he possessed. Dearer he prized it than all his works of alchemy or 
astrology, dearer even than the reveries of Religious Enthusiasm ; it was to his soul 
a thousand-fold more precious than the pages of those seers of the heart — Shakspearc 
and Milton. 

For from that boldly printed Hebrew volume the Lord God of Heaven and Earth 
talked to him, the unknown boy of Wissahikon, and talked in the language of the 
Other World. The Hebrew did not seem to him the language of men, but the awful 
and mysterious tongue of angels. Its syllables of music rolled full and deep into his 
soul, as though a spirit stood by him, while he read, pronouncing the words, whose 
meaning penetrated his brain. 

Our young pupil of divinity got along very pleasantly and comfortably 
in his theological researches, until a trifling incident disenchanted him 
with his studies. It was a little — a ludicrously little — thing of itself, but 
full of mountainous moment to Lippard. He was so full of innocent, 
humorous exaggeration, that we don't know exactly how much of the fol- 
lowing anecdote is fact, and how much playful " enlargement." At any 
rate this is the circumstance to which Lippard used to attribute his 
"backsliding" from the ministry. It shows " on what a little thread" 
hang all our fates ! 

One day his preceptor attended a religious conference held in the 
neighborhood, taking his promising young disciple along with him. 
While there the former purchased a quantity of fine peaches, which he 
proceeded to devour at leisure. Now, his young companion had not yet suc- 
ceeded in chastising his appetite — for peaches at least. His mouth watered 
as his revered spiritual guide slowly swallowed the delicious fruit. Now, 
whether the latter was seized with a fit of deep mental abstraction, and 
overlooked the presence of his scholar, or whether, with many old people, 
he thought that peaches — particularly fine, nice large ones — were " not 
good for boys," we do not know ; we only know (on our author's author- 
ity) that not a single peach did Lippard get, and that he was made 
miserable in consequence. He thought he had been neglected — ill-used, 
and he brooded over the grievance. He reasoned upon it in the following 
serious fashion : " Can a clergyman be truly pious if he buys a lot of 
peaches and eats them all himself, without giving me a single one? If 
such are the fruits of piety, I will have none of it." With this very 



14 LIVES ALONE IN AN OLD HOUSE. 

logical conclusion, Lippard withdrew from his pupilage and rushed into 
the world. 

He made his way back to the haunts of his childhood. He was poor 
but proud. He might, it is probable, have obtained assistance from 
some of his relatives, or the friends of his family. But he scorned to be 
a dependent. He would have starved first, and very nigh starving he 
did come. He picked up an honest meal here and there — we don't 
know how — and spent his desolate days in revery by the side of his 
beloved Wissahikon. 

He had no home ; but "necessity is the mother of invention," and he 
soon found one. There was a rusty dilapidated old house standing at 
that time near Franklin Square, Philadelphia. The venerable building 
must, at some time in its history, have been a grand affair. We hear 
that it had a hundred rooms, and was, altogether, a very stupendous 
structure. It had been abandoned, preparatory to being pulled down, to 
make room for a sprightlier modern edifice. Within this ancient and 
ghostly dwelling the poor orphan boy found a sanctuary. He picked out 
a very commodious room, and straightway proceeded to establish a 
" squatter sovereignty." Luxuries he had njone, of comforts few, but he 
had a house all to himself, and that was something to be proud of! 
Hither he came, after wandering all day by the side of the Wissahikon, 
or madly beating about the streets of the great city, and spent the night. 
His bed-furniture was primitive in its simplicity, consisting of four old 
chairs, and his valise for a pillow ! 

" All day within the dreamy house 

The doors upon their hinges creaked ; 
The blue-fly sung i' the pane ; the mouse 

Behind the moldering wainscot shrieked, 
Or from the crevice peered about. 

Old faces glimmered through the door. 

Old footsteps trod the upper floor. 
Old voices called him from without." 

Lippard, alone, " sole monarch of all he surveyed" in that empty 
house, enjoyed a fine field for the exercise of his imagination. Listen- 
ing to the mysterious nibblings and shriekings of the mice aforesaid, or 
the rattling of ill-jointed windows and doors ; groping with a candle 
among the entries clogged with rubbish ; peering through the keyholes 
of the hundred rooms, and wondering what awful mysteries were locked 
within them ; seeing old faces in dark corners ; fancying footsteps at 
midnight in deserted passages ; hearing old voices upon every wind that 



AMONG THE LAW BOOKS. 15 

whistled through the gaping crannies ; with all these stimulants to an 
imagination naturally vivid, the old house was a school-house to him. 
He learned many a lesson of mystery, and conjured up many a ghostly 
tale within its awe-inspiring precincts. We have no doubt that here he 
first conceived his idea of a " Monk-hall," the marvelous pile in which 
the startling deeds of his " Quaker City " are enacted. 

He was not long idle and purposeless, however. He was suddenly 
fired with a desire to be a lawyer. He succeeded in gaining admission 
to the office of William Badger, Esq., as a student and general " office- 
boy." \ 

Whatever subject Lippard undertook he always grappled with enthu- 
siasm and diligence. The " Philadelphia lawyer" has passed into a 
proverb. We can easily understand how George quickened with 
ambition at the contemplation of so many splendid examples of pro- 
fessional success on every side, and hoped some day to rival, perhape 
outstrip, them all. But to a youth of his peculiar temperament the dry 
details of legal lore must have been the merest husks. We picture to 
ourselves his frail young figure, with that fine forehead throbbing with 
intellect, as it bent over a moldy volume of reports, patiently picking 
out the grains of truth from huge piles of windy chafl'! And then we 
imagine him, as his brain grew weary of the irksome task, pitching the 
venerable book into a corner, and giving himself up to the enchantments 
of his own burning imagination, or dwelling with fond delight upon the 
sweet scenes of his early days. 

George was never destined to be a lawyer. He admired truth for 
truth's sake wherever he found it ; but, unfortunately, it is not always to 
be found in its highest state of purity in law books. It is far too thickly 
encumbered with legal tricks and quibbles. A law student must remem- 
ber not only what appears true to /ii?n, but what has appeared true to 
numerous justices and chief justices in big wigs who have preceded 
him. He must take note, not only of broad legal principles, but of nice 
decisions that 

" divide 
A hair twixt north and northwest side." 

So far as Law is common sense, our author had no trouble, we sup- 
pose, in getting along with it ; but when it came to subtile " distinctions 
without a difference," in which the science of jurisprudence so much 
abounds, his mind obstinately refused to take and retain them. This was 
the case with liim, as it has been and will be with thousands of other 
young men in whom imagination triumphs over the powers of arbitrary 



16 DEBUT AS A WKITEK. 

memory. Lippard, however, would have made a splendid advocate, 
though never an astonishing counsel lawyer. His eloquence, his Hying 
fancy, his piercing eye, the animated expression of his face, his vivacious 
gestures, fitted him for a perfect orator. Before a jury he would have 
been irresistible. 

But Lippard soon tired of the Law. He bade farewell to Coke, 
Blackstone & Co., and went forth into the world again to resume his 
precarious mode of subsistence. He was not long out of employment. 
He soon obtained a position as assistant editor on the " Daily Spirit of 
the Times," of which John S. Du Solle was editor-in-chief. The circum- 
stances of his engagement were as follows : 

An artist, an acquaintance of Mr. Du SoUe's, called upon him and 
informed him that a young man, of the name of Lippard, was in the habit 
of sleeping in the garret of his (the artist's) house. That this young man 
was starving for want of work. That he had talent, and possibly Mr. 
Du Solle might find him something to do. The editor expressed a wish 
to see the youth, and he was accordingly brought round for exhibition by 
the artist. The poor boy was at that time in a deplorable way. His 
face was thin with hunger ; his dress, a collection of rags, lashed 
together in some places with twine ; his whole person the walking image 
of starvation and despair. 

Mr. Du Solle saw something to admire in this gaunt and tattered 
young fellow. He gave him work upon his paper. This was Lippard's 
first introduction to the world as a writer. How gladly he entered upon 
his task ! How joyfully he waved back all his bitter memories with the 
" g^^y goose quill," that " arch enchanter's wand," and summoned instead 
the gay sprites that had so long waited silently upon his imagination 
and fancy ! 

He soon began to make a stir among the dry bones of Philadelphia 
journalism. His writings, at this epoch, were distinguished by their 
high humor and cutting satire. He made every thing about town the butt 
of his merciless wit. People began to laugh and stare. His lively para- 
graphs were talked about at home and widely copied abroad. It was evi- 
dent there was a new and a queer pen in the field, and the whole public 
was on tiptoe to know what funny prank it would cut up next. He continued 
to act as assistant editor of the " Spiritof the Times" for nearly three years. 
He wrote no connected tale or special series of articles in its columns. 

Finding that he flourished so famously as a writer of paragraphs, 
Lippard's ambition aimed at something higher. The wild dreams of his 
childhood began to take substantial shape. He wrote a book, in which 



"the LADTE ANNABEL," "HERBERT TRACY." 17 

he put down the impressions and suggestions that had haunted him most in 
his youth. Among his earliest reading (we infer from " Paul Ardenheim") 
was much of that strange, mystic, legendary lore which used to form 
the staple of romance in Germany. Fascinated with the terrible charm 
of these writings, it is not strange that, in his maiden book, he should 
have tried his hand at something of the same kind. His head was not 
long in devising an original and very ingenious plot, and down went 
" The Ladye Annabel" upon paper. In it, as the author says in his 
dedication to " Blanche of Brandywine," he intended to " picture the 
glory and gloom of the age of chivalry." It first appeared, in part or in 
whole, in a country paper, where it was the weekly wonder of farmhouse 
gossips for miles around. 

Some time in 1842 (George being then about twenty years of age) 
" Ladye Annabel" appeared between covers, and "made a palpable hit " 
It is a marvelous book — full of love, romance, revenge, plots and counter- 
plots, with a dash of supernaturalism. The characters are no wax-doll- 
babies, but all strong, impetuous, jumping, thrilling people, who do nothing 
by halves, but wreak their intensity upon everything they undertake, just 
as Lippard did upon the book itself. He leads the reader such a mad, 
rollicking dance through its wonderful pages, that the bewildered man 
hardly knows, at the "finis," whether he is standing on his head or heels. 
The book is completely stuffed, till it cracks, with dazzling incidents. 
Lippard hit upon the plan of keeping up the interest of each weekly por- 
tion, by making it, in a certain sense, a story of itself. Each chapter 
has a climax of its own. He found that this plan worked admirably, and 
he pursued it more or less in all his subsequent works. They are all, 
as the author meant them to be, a series of pictures — a gallery of bold 
paintings. 

The success of " The Ladye Annabel" induced our author to make 
another venture. He wrote " Herbert Tracy." In this book he gave 
another class of his youthful impressions and reveries, in the form of a 
revolutionary tale. We begin to learn something of Germantowa and 
the Wissahikon in its pages. It contains much of the startling battle-de- 
scriptions, vivid portrayals of character, and fine landscape sketches that 
we find in his later works. The plot is ingenious and interesting. We 
regard it as inferior, however, to his " Washington and his Generals," 
"Blanche of Brandywine," etc., and prefer to think of Lippard as a le- 
gendary writer in connection with these two books. Nevertheless 
" Herbert Tracy" " took" well, and even to this day holds a respectable 
place in circulating libraries. 



18 MOTIVES IM WRITING THE " QUAKER CITY.'* 

Upon the heels of " Herbert Tracy" came " The Battle-day of Germari- 
town," which, in subject and general management, is akin fo its prede- 
cessor. Much of the interest of the tale clusters about Chew's House — 
famous in history as the scene of a frightful revolutionary conflict. It 
revived the celebrity of the fine old mansion, as a historical relic, with 
the present generation, and many a pilgrim has visited it, fired with the 
eloquence of " The Battle-day of Germantown." 

The " Quaker City" was Lippard's first really splendid success. It 
was written in the fall of 1844, and exhibits Lippard as acted upon by a 
«yit>fZ series of impressions, no less vivid and powerful than the mysticisrtl 
of Germany or the traditional marvels of the Revolution. The motives 
which impelled him to write the " Quaker City" are thus stated by our 
author in the preface to the 27th edition : 

I was the only protector of an orphan sister. I was fearful that I might be taken 
away by death, leaving her alone in the world. I knew too well that law of society 
which makes a virtue of the dishonor of a poor girl, while it justly holds the seduction 
of a rich man's child as an infamous crime. These thoughts impressed me deeply. 1 
determined to write a book founded upon the following idea : 

The seduction of a poor and innocent girl is a deed altogether as criminal as 
deliberate murder. It is worse than the murder of the body, for it is the assassi- 
nation of the soul. If the murderer deserves death by the gallows, then the 
assassin of chastity and maidenhood is worthy of death by the hands of any man, 
and in any place. 

This was the first idea of the Work. It embodies a sophism, but it is a sophism 
that errs on the right side. But as I progressed in my task, other ideas were added 
to the original thought. Secluded in my room, having no familiarity with the vicea 
of a large city, save from my studentship in the office of an Attorney-General — the 
Confessional of our Protestant communities — I determined to write a book which 
should describe all the phases of a corrupt social system, as manifested in the city of 
Philadelphia. The results of my labors was this book, which has been more attacked 
and more read than any work of American fiction published for the last ten years. 

And now I can say with truth, that whatever faults may be discovered in this 
Work, my motive in its composition was honest, was pure, was as destitute of any 
idea of sensualism as certain of the persons who have attacked it without reading a 
single page, are of candor, of a moral life, or a heart capable of generous emotions. 

To the young man and young woman who may read this book when I am dead, I 
have a word to say : 

Would to God that the evils recorded in these pages were not based upon facts ! 
Would to God that the experience of my life had not impressed me so vividly with the 
colossal vices, the terrible deformities, presented in the social system of the Large 
City in the Nineteenth Century. You will read this work when the hand which 
pens this line is dust. If you discover one word in its pages that has a tendency to 
develop one impure thought, I beseech you reject that word. If you discover a chap- 
ter, a page, or a line that conflicts with the great idea of Human Brotherhood pro- 
mulgated by the Redeemer, I ask you with all my soul reject that chapter, that 



niE nORI^ETS NEST. 19 

J>aSsage, tbat line. At the same time remember the idea which impelled mc to pro- 
duce the book. Remember tbat my life, from the age of sixteen up to twenty-five 
Was one perpetual battle with hardship and difficulty, such as do not often fall to the 
lot of a young man — such as rarely is recorded in the experience of childhood or 
manhood. Take the book with all its faults and virtiles. Julg3 it as you yourself 
would wish to be judged. Do not wrest a line from these pages for the encourage- 
ment of a bad thought or a bad deed. 

The sister so tenderly alluded to was Harriet Newell Lippard, several 
years younger than her brother. She was a beautiful girl, with dark 
hair, flashing black eyes, and a soft brunette complexion. Her personal 
resemblance to George was very strong. Her temperament was exqui- 
sitely sensitive. Those who knew her speak in high praise of her 
personal and mental fascinations. She was distinguished for brilliant 
Conversational powers — a talent at lively repartee. 

The "Quaker City"' came out in pamphlets; it was almost the first 
attempt in Ariiorica to issue a connected story in a serial form, and but 
for Lippard's ingenious management of the plot would probably have 
failed. He contrived, as in his " Ladye Annabel," to give a climax of 
interest to each number, so that each was readable of itself, considered 
apart from the main thread of the narrative. It was published in ten 
numbers, the first appearing September 5th, 1844. 

The " Quaker City" is a terrible book. The author takes off his coat, 
rolls up his shirt-sleeves, and deliberately plunges into the great hornets' 
nest of social vices. He crushes this wrong ; he pulls the sting out of 
that gilded crime ; he wrings ofi' the head of yonder sanctimonious hum- 
bug. The first number began to make a buzz ; the second started the 
poisonous insects from their den ; and before he got through with the 
job, the whole swarm Was attacking him front and rear. But Lippard 
"went right on, reckless of personal danger. His friends advised him to 
be prudent. Not he ! As for fear, he knew not the word. His life 
was literally in danger. " Curses, not loud, but deep," were borne to 
him upon every wind. He was threatened with the assassin's knife, but 
he fearlessly walked the streets by day or night as usual. His courage 
and audacity disarmed his foes, and we are not aware that any actual 
attempt was ever made to injure a hair of his head. 

The book was the talk of the city. It divided society into two parties, 
one justifying the " Quaker City," the other execrating it and the author. 
The laborers, the mechanics, the great body of the people, were on Lip- 
pard's side. The press, by attacks and vindications, kept up the popular 
t'xcitement. AVhat gave to the book a fearful interest, apart from the 
enchantment of the story as a story, was the suspicion that a certain 



20 " QUAKER city" DRAMATIZED. ALMOST A RIOT. 

recent tragical event in Philadelphia was the substance of the plot. It 
was supposed that, under the name of " Gus Lorrimer," Lippard meant 
to portray the career of a fashionable libertine, who had been shot dead 
by a brother for the unpardonable crime of seducing his sister. 
People began to pick out other portraits in the volume, until, at last, 
every character of the fiction had its living original about town. 

A dramatist, Avith the usual shrewdness of his craft, hearing nothing 
else talked of but the " Quaker City," conceived the idea of adapting it 
for the stage. This was while the book was in course of publication. 
He did so, and the play was advertised for representation at the Chesnut 
Street Theater. This raised a new tempest. The opponents of the 
book swore it never should be performed, while its friends determined, 
just as solemnly, to stand by it. As the night of the announcement drew 
near, popular excitement increased, and the Mayor grew fearful for the 
peace of the city. The tragical events of the great Catholic-American 
riots were fresh in his mind. A disturbance was threatened. He therefore 
requested the manager of the theater to withdraw the piece, and he did so. 
The momentous evening came. A large crowd speedily collected 
about the theater. The enemies of the play threatened, if it were pro- 
duced, to burn the building, and personal violence was promised to Lip- 
pard himself. Lippard's adherents, on the other hand, swore that the 
drama should be acted. Lippard was present, wrapped in an ample 
cloak, and carrying a sword-cane to repel assaults. He moved freely 
among the mob, without much care whether he was seen or not. At 
this dangerous crisis the Mayor appeared ; conversed with Lippard, and 
requested him to use his influence to quiet the row. He consented, and 
the Mayor stepped forward and announced that it was Mr. Lippard's 
wish that the play should not go on. This statement pacified the op- 
ponents, and quieted Lippard's friends ; the crowd gradually withdrew, 
and " order reigned in Warsaw." 

It must be borne in mind that the " Quaker City" was written to depict 
the dark side of Philadelphia life ; its mission was to be the stern and 
unsparing foe of vice. This design is carried forward with an awful 
unity of design from beginning to end. We like it the least of all Lip- 
pard's writings on this account. We prefer those in which he speaks 
more hopefully and cheerily of mankind. The " Quaker City," as a work 
of art, is no less creditable on that account however. It abounds in 
passages of great eloquence and beauty. This is a life-like impressive 
sketch, in which Devil-Bug (a fine original creation of Lippard's) carries 
off the insensible form of Byrnewood, preparatory to burying him alive. 



" devil-bug" and phantoms. 21 

Unheedmg the muttered groan -which escaped from Byrnewood's lips, he raised him 
on his shoulder, as though he had been a mere bundle of merchandise. In a moment 
he left the Walnut Room, and was descending the stairs, with the unconscious man 
on his shoulders, while his extended hand grasped the flickering lamp. With a quiet 
smile on his lip Devil-Bug descended the stairs, and in a few moments stood on the 
floor of the hall opening into the Banquet Room. The echo of shouts mingled with 
laughter rung around the place. Devil-Bug grimly smiled, and passing the door- 
way of the Banquet Room, stole cautiously along the damp floor of the hall, and in a 
moment the glare of the lamp flashed over the grand stairway of stone, leading far 
dowTi into the vaults of Monk-hall. 

And far, far down, over massive steps of granite, with solid arches above and 
thick walls on either side, far, far down, with the rays of the lamp flashing over the 
void beneath with a faint yet gloomy efi'ect, like a light darting its beams along the 
darkness of some hideous well. Devil- Bug pursued his way, his strong right arm sup- 
porting the unconscious form of his victim, flung like a bundle over his shoulder, 
while his distorted face grew animate with that grimace of habitual cruelty which 
gave his visage the expression of an incarnate fiend, and developed all the hideous 
moral deformity of his nature. 

Down, down, over damp steps of granite, down, down ! The monotonous echo of 
his footsteps disturbs the silence of the air, and now and then his victim, hanging 
over the shoulders of the Doorkeeper, utters a faint moan, as he feebly clutches at 
the door with his hands. The stairway terminates on a wide hall with roof and floor 
of stone ; on one side the massive door leading into the Dead-vault of Monk-hall, on 
the other side another door, as high and as massive, leading into the Wine-cellar of 
the old mansion. At Devil-Bug's back ascends the stairway of granite. He advances 
along the stone floor, and at his very feet descends another stairway, more dark and 
gloomy than the first, with clammy moisture trickling down the walls, while the 
light flares fitfully over a long succession of stone blocks, sinking far, far down into 
the bosom of earth and night. This stairway leads to the Pit of Monk-hall. 

Ha ! Old Devil-Bug starts and clenches his hand, and, at the very thought of that 
fearful cavern, sunk far beneath the earth, below the foundations of Monk-hall. 

Has the name of the place a terrible memory for your soul, Devil-Bug.' Does no 
phantom arise before you, as, standing on the verge of the stairway, you gaze into 
the void below .' does no phantom, with blood-dripping hair and ghastly eyes, arise 
before you and scare you back.' The phantom of a murdered man, with a mangled 
jaw sunken on the breast, a tongue lolling from his mouth, and bloodshot eyes 
starting from a face darkened to purple by the hand of death. 

Ho ! ho ! What cares Devil-Bug for phantoms in liis path or white-shrouded 
ghosts gliding by his side .' Derided and scorned by that fellow-man whom he never 
3'et called brother, the ofi'cast of the world from his very birth, a walking curse and 
a breathing execration upon all mankind, why should old Devil-Bug fear that phan- 
tom world which dawns upon his solitary eye .' 

Ha ! ha ! ha ! Old Devil-Bug loves the old arches of Monk-hall ; he loves the cel- 
lars and the dens ; he loves the song of the revelers in the Banquet Room and the 
glee of the cut-throats in the vaults below ; he loves the Skeleton Monk like a twin- 
brother; but the phantoms, ha! ha! they are at once his fear and his delight! The 
murdered man gliding forever by his side, with the broken jaw and the starting 
eyes, he hails him as a thing of joy ! And the murdered woman, with the quivering 



22 DOWN TO THE PIT OF MONK-IIALL. 

form and hollow skull, oozing yr'ith. the slowly -pattering blood; ha! ha! this phan- 
tom is one of Devil-Bug's familiar spirits. 

But the Pit, the Pit of Monli-hall ; ha ! ha ! He shudders at the name ; he starts 
and grows pale. The phantom of the murdered man he can endure as he has 
endured for years ! But to go down, step by step, into the lowest deep of the pest- 
house; to stand in the nethermost cavern of Monk-hall for the first time for many 
long years ; to start with fear at the palpable presence of the bare skull and 
moldering bones of the murdered man! ho! ho! this were a hard trial, even for 
Devil-Bug's strong nerves and strong heart- 
But down, down into the pit he will go ; down, down, with the form of his intended 
victim on his shoulder, and the lamp held firmly in his talon-fingers; down, down, 
until the air grows thick with the breath of corruption, and the light flashes in its 
socket as it dies away under the pressure of an atmosphere never yet enlivened by a 
single ray of God's sunlight, but rendered fatal and deathly by the decay of the 
human corse, as it crumbles to dust, with the worms reveling orer its rottenness, 
and the thick night shrouding it like a pall. 
********* 
" Ho, ho, ho !" chuckled Devil-Bug, as he stood on the verge of the granite stair- 
way. " Here's dampness, an' darkness, an' the smell o' bones all for nothin'. 
Children under ten years half price ! This feller on my shoulder don't move nor 
struggle. Vonder if he thirks o' th' jolly things we're a-goin' to do with him. 
Buried alive ! I do venders how that '11 vork !" 

With these words Devil-Bug began the descent of the granite stairway. The 
heavy echo of his footsteps resounded upward with a dull monotonous sound, as, 
lighting his way with the extended lamp, he went far, far down into the darkness of 
the staircase. Once or twice, as the moaning sound of the wind came rushing down 
the passage, Devil-Bug started with involuntary surprise, and with his burden on 
his shoulder attempted to turn around and face the enemy whom his excited fancy 
had imagined pursuing his footsteps. But the unconscious man gave a faint struggle, 
and, occupied with the effort to hold him tightly on his shoulder, Devil-Bug smiled 
at the moaning sound of the wind, and, with his usual grimace, pursued his way. 
Down, down, down ! Was not that low pattering noise the echo of a footstep at his 
heels .' Devil-Bug smiled grimly as the fancy crossed his mind. Down, down, down ! 
The old archway above the staircase grows crimson with the light of the lamp, and 
the drops of moisture trickling along the walls glittered like diamonds in a river's 
sands. Was not that faint and rustling sound the noise of a garment sweeping the 
stairs at his back .' Half turning, Devil-Bug gazed into the darkness above, but the 
thick gloom enveloped the stairway like a pall, and his solitary eye might discei'n 
nothing but silence and night. 

Devil-Bug is the product of a rotten civilization. He is the major-domo 
of Monk-hall, the grotesque building in which most of the horrors of the 
Quaker City are enacted. He is the incarnation of depravity. But even 
he has a beautiful memory — lie has a twilight conscience. Here we have 
Devil-Bug with a passing whim of remorse : 

He stood with his head drooped low on his wide chest, while his hands hung ex- 
tended by his side. His solitary eye, which contracted and dilated like the eye of a 



devil-bug's eemokse. a tuought of god. 23 

tiger, grew large and lustrous. Ills teetli were clenched, while his thick lip receded 
in a convulsive grimace. He stood motionless as the aged walls of that old house, of 
whose wide rooms and dreary vaults he seemed the living soul. 

In that moment of silence what a world of thought passed over the soul of the 
monster ! 

First came a vision of the fair woman who had loved him. Loved the outcast of 
mankind, the devil in human shape ! Could you have seen Devil-Bug"s soul at the 
moment it was agitated by this memory, you would have started at the contrast 
which it presented in comparison with his deformed body. For a moment the soul of 
Devil-Bug was beautiful. 

Then the scorn of the world crowded upon his soul. His ignominious birth, hia 
lonely life, the hatred which was felt for him, and the loathing which he felt for man, 
his distorted face and deformed body. Like a black cloud it gathered upon him. Had 
Devil-Bug"s soul assumed a tangible shape, his body in comparison would have grown 
beautiful. It was terrible to note the malice of his soul flashing from his eye and 
trembling on his lip. 

Then came one wild and wandering thought. It darted over the chaos of his mind 
like the long and trembling ray of a star that shines but for an instant and then is 
dark forever. It was a thought, brief it is true, wild and wandering, yet mighty in 
its very brevity of existence, and most glorious in its wandering shape — it was a 
thought of God. Devil-Bug for a moment felt the existence of a God. For a moment 
he felt that he had a Father in the Universe. He imagined an awful being, with a 
face of unutterable beauty, an awful being looking forth from a vast immensity of 
clouds and darkness, Avhile a frown broke over his eternal brow. De\'il-Bug felt that 
this being was his Father. He felt that he, Devil-Bug, the outcast of earth, the 
incarnate outlaw of hell, had one friend in the wide universe : that friend his Creator, 
lie felt in every fiber of his deformed soul that the eyes of the awful Being were fixed 
upon him in terrible reproof, yet with a gleam of mercy breaking from theu* eternal 
luster. 

This thought was but for a moment. Like a flash of light it came, like a shadow 
it passed away. 

The tragic fate of Lorrimer is thus graphically told : 

SUNSET ON CHRIST.MA-S EVE. 

The wann glow of the setting sun, gleaming through an opening in the clouda, 
streamed down the hill of Walnut Street, over the wharf, and along the broad bosom 
of the Delaware. 

Some few idlers were lotinging round the doors of the hotel ; here and there stood a 
vagrant, along the edges of the wharf, gazing indolently at the form of the retreating 
ferry-boat, which, some hundred yards from shore, was plowing its way through the 
waters of the Delaware, toward the dim shores of Jersey. 

Suddenly the sun disappeared behind a cloud, and two figures came hastening down 
Walnut Street, rushing hurriedly through the snow, toward the wharf. In a few 
moments they attained the edge of the wharf; they stood upon the ferry landing, and 
gazed upon the retreating steamboat, while an expression of deep chagrin spread over 
their faces. 



24: SUNSET ON CHRISTMAS EVE. 

" Curse tlie thing," cried the tallest of the twain, -whose manly form was enveloped 
in a tight-fitting Avhite over-coat, " we are too late for the boat !" 

With an oath on his lips he then gazed nervously along Walnut Street, and paced 
the wharf with a wild and hurried footstep. 

His companion, a little man, wrapped up in a large cloak, with a well-polished 
glazed cap on his head, also cast an eager look along Walnut Street, and then gazed 
at the retreating ferry-boat with a deep muttered curse. 

" Gus, we're too late for the boat," he exclaimed in a hurried whisper. " Had'nt 
we better go up home again .' I don't exactly like the idea of standing here in thia 
public place " 

"I will leave this town to-night!" exclaimed Lorrimer. "Aye, leave the Quaker 
City, if I have to swim to yonder shore ! Tell me, good fellow, is there no way of 
crossing to Camden ?" 

He spoke to a weather-beaten man, whose broad shoulders and brawny chest were 
enveloped in a stout pea-jacket, while an old tarpaulin hat shadowed over his sun- 
burnt brow. 

"That's the last ferry-boat, mister," said the fisherman; "but I've got a boat 
layin' alongside the wharf there that would take you over in a jiffey." 

" Quick — there's a dollar for you," cried Lorrimer in hux-ried tones. " Row us 
over in time for the New York cars and I'll make it five." 

Ere a moment passed, Petriken and the fisherman were seated in the boat, while 
Lorrimer lingered on the edge of the wharf. 

For a single instant he stood with his handsome form raised to its full height, while 
the wind played with the curls of his dark brown hair. His hazel eye gleamed with 
light, while his mustachioed lip was compressed with some deep emotion. 

" Christmas Eve!" he muttered. "Farewell to the Quaker City, and farewell for 
many a day !" 

He leaped into the boat and seated himself by Petriken's side, in the seat nearest 
the bow. 

" Trim boat," cried the fisherman, as he sat on the central seat, with an oar grasped 
in each sturdy hand ; " trim boat, an' FU make the crittur fly." 

He was about to urge the boat into the stream when his attention was arrested by 
a voice from the wharf. Two persons stood soliciting a passage to the opposite shore. 
One was a tall Quaker, whose broad-brimmed hat shadowed a fine, venerable face, 
while his ruddy cheeks contrasted with his snow-white hair, presented the tokens of 
a green old age. He was dressed in dark brown attire, shapen after the peculiar 
fashion of his sect, a capacious great-coat reaching to his heels, thrown open in 
front, revealing the under-coat and voluminous waistcoat, all of the same respect- 
table hue. 

" Friend," he said in a calm, even voice, " I will be much obliged to thee for a 
place in thy boat, in case thou art bound for Camden ?" 

*' And I," said a harsh and shrill voice at his side, " will give you five dollars if yon 
will row me over in time for the New York cars " 

The person who last spoke was clad in an over-coat of coarse gray buttoned up to 
his throat, with a fur cap drawn down over his head, and a large black kerchief tied 
round his cheeks and mouth. From between the upraised collar of his coat and his 
dark fur cap a few locks of snow-white hair fell waving on the wind. 

" Come on, gentlemen," said the old fisherman, in his bluff, hearty tones. " Jump 



SUNSET ON CHEISTilAS EVE. 25 

in the boat, an' I'll spin you over like a top. Take that seat in the starn. Now, then, 
trim boat, and away we go." 

The boat darted from the wharf, with the old fisherman seated in the center, while 
Lorrimer and Petriken occupied the front seat, and the Quaker sat beside the old 
man in the stern. 

For a few moments all was silent, save the sullen dipping of the oars. One thick 
mass of clouds lay over the city, and along the western horizon a dense gloom covered 
the face of the waters ; not a ray shone over the surface of a rippling billow, not a 
single golden gleam lighted on the crest of a rolling wave. Lorrimer turned his face 
over his shoulder and glanced vacantly at the other occupants of the boat ; there was 
a calm smile on the face of the Quaker, but the man in the gray surtout sat with his 
head drooped on his folded arms, while his long white hair lay floating on his shoul- 
ders. One eager glance at the sky, and Lorrimer gazed in the pallid face of Petriken, 
who sat like a statue by his side. He was about to speak to his minion, but the 
strange gloom which fell from the clouds upon the waters cast its shadow on his soul. 

" It is a cold wind, my friend,'' said the Quaker to the old man in the gray surtout, 
" a bitter cold wind. And look yonder, surely those are snow-flakes tossing in the 
air ?" 

" Yes, it is cold," was the reply of the old man by his side, as he sat with his head 
drooped upon his folded arms. 

There Avas something so harsh and repulsive in the manner of this man that the old 
Quaker, apparently balked in his effort to start a conversation with him, addressed 
his next remark to the boatman. 

" Can thee tell me, friend, whether this darkness is caused by the clouds, or is it 
sunset, indeed ?" 

" Sunset .'" echoed Lorrimer, turning in his seat and gazing over the boatman's 
shoulder into the Quaker's face. " Who talks of sunset .' Ah — excuse me, sir," he 
continued, as if startled by his own abruptness, " I thought the remark was addressed 
to me. But tell me, my good fellow, has the sun gone down, or is this sudden dark- 
ness but the shadow of yonder wall of clouds .■"' 

" It wants five — p'rhaps ten minutes of sunset, young gentleman," was the answer 
of the boatman. 

Lorrimer turned his face to the Jersey shore with an expression strange and 
doubtful in its character. True, his dark hazel eyes gleamed with a steady glance ; 
true, his manly cheek glowed with a ruddy hue, but there was a gloom on his brow 
as vague and undefinable as the sh.adow resting on the bosom of the Delaware. 

" Pshaw !" he muttered, " the boat creeps along with a snail's pace. Would I 
could feel my feet upon the solid ground again ! — would — why, Silly, you sit there 
like a stone. Why don't you say something, man .'" 

" The fact is, Gus, my spirits are rather low," returned the little man, with chat- 
tering teeth. " It's cursed cold on the river, too ; that wind cuts a fellow like 
knives." 

There was silence in the boat again. She darted over the waves with a light ca- 
reering motion, while the dipping of the oars into the sullen waters struck the ear with 
a wild and mournful sound. The dark atmosphere was whitened with falling snow- 
flakes, Avhich came down with a fluttering motion and sunk into the waves like birds, 
dissolving all at once into thin air. 

In silence the boat approached the island which arises in the lordly Delaware. She 



26 THE PROPHECY FULFILLED. 

entered the canal wliicli diYidcs this bank of land in twain ; the sound of the dipping 
oars broke on the air, mingled with the hoarse murmurs of the waves as they dashed 
against the oaken planks which line the shores of the channel. Still all was gloom 
upon the waters, still the flakes of snow came gently down, still all was silence within 
the boat. 

This channel was soon cleared ; the city lay on the west like a black wall of houses, 
roofs, and mast-heads ; the boat darted toward the Camden shore. 

Lorrimer's head was bent on his breast. Thoughts of his home came gathering 
around his heart like dear hopes and sad farewells. He beheld the parlor, lighted by 
the Christmas Eve fire ; he saw the form of his mother, the angel-face of his sister. 
And then the thought of Mary, the betrayed, the dishonored, came over him, grim 
and ghastly as a pall flung over a bed of roses. 

"Would to God we could reach the Jersey shore!" he muttered. "My foot once 
on that soil, all these gloomy thoughts will banish " 

The clouds broke in the west ; in glorious piles, and towers, and pinnacles they 
broke, and the red sun poured a flood of glory over the waters, as their rolling sub- 
sided to a soft and undulating motion. Every tiny wave was gold, every ripplet 
quivered in floods of voluptuous light. 

Lorrimer glanced over his shoulder. The aged Quaker was gazing round in calm 
delight, while the old man in the gray coat still sat with his head drooped on his 
folded arms. With a murmur of admriation he gazed upon the distant city, as its 
steeples rose in living light. The river was a sheet of floating gold ; the western horizon 
was filled with a gorgeous world of clouds, rising pile on pile, with the light of the 
setting sun streaming over the spires and roofs of the city, while the white snow-flakes 
floated in the air like birds, whose hues were beautiful as the rays of a star. 

Never had the sky looked so gorgeous, the river so lovely, the city so much like 
home. 

With a murmur of delight Lorrimer rose on his feet, gazing toward the west with 
dilating eyes. 

The full glory of the sun poured over his manly form as it rose in all its towering 
height; it shone gladly over his face, with its handsome features, the curving lip 
darkened by a mustache, the glowing cheeks, the open brow, with the brown locks 
tossing in the air. His eyes were full of life, his brow grew radiant with the deep 
joy of existence quivering through every vein. He stood the incarnation of manly 
glory and pride. 

" Ha, ha !" he muttered in a half audible tone, " ' On Christmas Eve, at the hour of 
sundown, one of ye will die by the other's hand !' Ha, ha ! the shadow is gone from 
my soul. It is Christmas Eve, and the prophecy is false." 

He gazed toward the massive edifice of the Navy Yard, and then as he stood with 
outspread arms, his eye was attracted by some object floating in the water near the 
boat. It was a fur cap half concealed by a mass of waving gray hair : while a syllable 
of wonder trembled on his lip, he turned his gaze to the boat, and the life-blood at hia 
heart grew cold. 

There, there, right before his face, at the back of the old boatman, stood a quivering 
form — there his eye met the gaze of a dark eye, flashing incarnate hate — there his 
sight was blasted by the vision of a livid face, with long dark hair streaming wildly 
aside from a brow like death. The stranger whose hair was white had vanished. lu 
his place towered the form of the Avenger, Byrnewood Arlington. 



DEATH OF TIIK BKTKAYER. 27 

Lorrimcr gave but a single look, and then, frozen -with a strange horror, he beheld 
the arm extended, he saw that pale hand, he saw the pistol pointed at his heart. 

" Back !" he shrieked. " You dare not murder me. The prophecy is false— ha!" 

" In the name of Mary Arlington — die !" was the awful and deliberate sentence of 
the Avenger. 

There was the sudden report of a pistol, there was a cloud of curling blue smoke. 
In a moment it cleared away. Ills clenched hand raised stiffly in the air, his chest 
heaving with an awful agony, his parted lips disclosing his gnashing teeth, his hazel 
eyes bulging from their sockets, Lorrimer stood for a single instant, and then with a 
faintly-muttered name he fell. 

" Mary !" the word gurgled upward with his death-groan, as he lay Avith his back 
against the hard plank of the seat, while his head sunk to the bottom of the boat. A 
thick stream of blood gushed from his chest and stained the hands of the boatman ; 
Petriken's livid face was red with the life-current of the Libertine. 

With one simultaneous cry of horror, the Quaker, the boatman, and the minion 
started to their feet. The boat quivered like a child's toy on the agitated waves. 

That cry of horror shook the air again. 

Byrnewood Arlington knelt on the bottom of the tossing boat, the dead man's head 
upon his knees. 

His face was the face of a maniac. Every feature quivered, every lineament trem- 
bled with a joy more horrible than death. His black eyes stood out from their sockets ; 
his dark hair waved in the beams of the setting sun. 

"Ha, ha!" the shout burst from his lips. "Here is blood warm, warm — ay, 
warm and gushing. Is that the murmur of a brook, is that the whisper of a breeze, 
is tliat the song of a bird ? No, no, but still it is music — that gushing of the Wrong- 
cr"s blood ! Deeply wronged, Mary ; deeply, darkly wronged ! But fully avenged, 
Mary, ay, to the last drop of his blood ! Have you no music there ? I would dance, 
yes, yes, I would dance over the corse ! Ha, ha, ha ! Not the sound of the organ — 
that is too dark and gloomy. But the drum, the trumpet, the chorus of a full band ; 
fill heaven and earth with joy ! For in sight of God and his angels I would dance 
over the corse, while a wild song of joy fills the heavens ! A song — huzza — a song ! 
And the chorus, mark ye how it swells ! Huzza !" 

This, this, is the vengeance of a brother !" 

The popularity of the " Quaker City" has been rarely equaled by an 
American book. We have before us the Twenty-seventh edition, bearing 
date 1849. Each edition comprised from one thousand to four thousand 
copies. It was republished in London. A German translation was also 
issued in Leipsic (Otto Wigand publisher); the name of Frederick 
Gerstaker — a German writer of considerable repute — appeared as the 
author. 

The "Quaker City" being completed, Lippard turned his busy mind 
into the Legendary field again. He wrote his " Blanche of Brandy- 
wine." It is a stirring story, founded upon revolutionary incidents which 
took place upon the banks of that beautiful river. It was published in 
1846, and dedicated, with a touching tribute of admiration, to Henry 



28 "WASHINGTON AND HIS GENERALS." 

Clay. The author thus quotes in the dedication, from a letter received 
by him from the great Statesman : 

" All that you say about the ardent affection of my friends is perfectly 
true. It has been displayed in many and some very touching forms. I 
am inexpressibly grateful for it. I vv^ish it were in my power more than 
I have ever been able to do, to testify the profound sense which I feel 
for the great obligations under which they have placed me." 

" Blanche of Brandy wine" was the fifth book issued by Lippard in three 
years. The critics never can accuse him of laziness — that is certain. 

It has been said that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own 
country." There was an exception in the case of Lippard. He was in- 
vited to deliver a course of historical lectures before the William Wirt 
Institute of Philadelphia, a fine literary body. Our author selected Remi- 
niscences of the Revolution as his theme, and treated them in the form of 
legends. They were very successfully received. He delivered other 
legends upon the same interesting subject, before the Institute, of the 
Revolution. These were afterward published in the "Philadelphia 
Saturday Courier." Lippard's prolific pen gathered speed with the theme. 
He continued to pour out his Legends from week to week through the 
columns of that paper. To illustrate his rapidity of composition, a friend 
tells us that he saw him, in an emergency dash ofi' one of these Legends 
— a charming one — three columns long, in a couple of hours. The 
series was published in a book form in 1847. 

"Washington and his Generals," like other of Lippard's works, is an 
attempt to present the history of the Revolution in a poetic garb. The 
main incidents are historical facts — but much of the filling in is necessa- 
rily fiction. The author has been liberally abused for eking out history 
with his imagination. But this is simply a question of taste — it is not 
criminal. We do not remember a single instance where Lippard does 
injustice to the memory of the dead. He employs his ideality to add to 
their historic glories. This purpose was noble, and " Washington and 
his Generals" has done very nuich to familiarize the American people 
with those great facts of the Revolution, which otherwise they might 
never know, or, knowing, would soon forget. 

We quote some of the most entertaining legends. 

"remember paoli." 

Hist! — It is still night ; the clear sky arches above ; the dim woods are all around 
the field; and in the center of the meadow, resting on the grass crisped by the 
autumnal frosts, sleep the worn veterans of the war, disheartened by want and 
wearied by the day's march. 



"kemembek paoli." 29 

It is still night; and the light of the scanty fire falls on Tvan faces, hollow 
eyes, and sunken cheeks; on tattered apparel, muskets unfit for use, and broken 
arms. 

It is still night; and they snatch a feverish sleep beside the scanty fire, and lay 
them down to dream of a time wlien the ripe harvest shall no more be trodden down 
by the blood-stained hoof — when the valley shall no more be haunted by the Traitor 
Refugee — when Liberty and Freedom shall walk in broadcloth, instead of wandering 
about with the unshodden feet, and the tattered rags of want. 

It is still night; and Mad Anthony Wayne watches while his soldiers sleep. 

He watches beside the camp-fire. You can mark his towering foi-m, his breadth 
of shoulders, and his prominence of chest. You c:in see his face by the red light of 
the fire — that manly face, with the broad forehead, the marked eyebrows over- 
arching the deep hazel eye, that lightens and gleams as he gazes upon the men of 
his band. 

You can note the uniform of the Revolution — the wide coat of blue, varied by the 
buckskin sword-belt, from which depends the sword that Wayne alone can wield — 
the facings of buff, the buttons rusted by the dews of night, and the march-worn 
trooper's boots, reaching above his knees, with the stout iron spurs standing oitfrom 
each heel. 

Hist! The niglit is still, but there is a sound in yonder thicket. 

Look! can you see nothing.' 

No. The night is still— the defenseless Continentals sleep in the center of the 
meadow — all around is dark. The sky above is clear, but the stars give forth no 
light. The wind sweeps around the meadow — dim and indistinct it sweeps, and is 
silent and still. I can see nothing. 

Place your ear to the earth. Hear you nothing? 

Yes — yes. A slight sound — a distant rumbling. There is thunder growling in the 
bosom of the earth, but it is distant. It is like the murmur on the ocean, ere the 
terrible white squall sweeps away the commerce of a nation — but it is distant, very 
distant. 

Now look forth on the night. Cast your eye to the thicket — see you nothing .' 

Yes — there is a gleam like the light of the fire-fly. Ha! It lightens on the night 
■ — that quivering gleam! It is the flash of swords — the glittering of arms ! 

"Charge upon the Rebels! Upon them — over them — no quarter — no quarter!" 

Watcher of the night, watcher over the land of the New World, watching over the 
fortunes of the starved children of Freedom — what see you now ? 

A band of armed men, mounted on stout steeds, with swords in their uplifted 
hands. They sweep from the thicket; they encompass the meadow; they surround 
the Rebel host! 

The fi;allant Lord Grey rides at their head. His voice rings out clear and loud 
upon the frosty air. 

"Root and branch, hip and thigh, cut them down. Spare not a man — heed never 
a cry for quarter. Cut them down! Charge for England and St. George!" 

And then there was uplifting of swords, and butchery of defenseless men, and there 
■was a riding over the wounded, and a trampling over the fuces of the dying. And 
then there was a cry for quarter, and the response — 

"To your throats take that! We give you quarter, the quarter of the sword, ac- 
cursed Rebels!" 



so "remember PAOLl.'* 

There Tvas a moment whose history was written with good sharp swords on the 
visages of dying men. 

It was tlie moment when the defenseless Continental sprang up from his hasty 
eleep into the arms of the merciless death ! It was the moment when Wayne groaned 
aloud with agony, as the sod of Paoli was flooded with a pool of blood that poured 
from the corses of the slaughtered soldiers of his band. It was the moment when 
the cry for quarter was mocked — when the Rebel clung in his despair to the stirrup 
of the Britisher, and clung in vain ; it was the moment when the gallant Lord 
Grey — that gentleman, nobleman, Christian — whose heart only throbbed with gen- 
erous impulses; who from his boyhood was schooled in the doctrines of mercy, 
halloed his war-dogs on to the slaughter, and shouted up to the star-lit heavens* 
until the angels might grow sick of the scene — 

"Over them — over them — heed neVer a cry — heed never a voice! Root and 
branch out them down! — No quarter!" 

It is dark and troubled night; and the Voice of Blood goes up to God, shrieking 
for vengeance ! 

It is morning; sad and ghastly morning; and the first sunbeams shine over the 
field which was yesternight a green meadow — the field that is now an Aceldema — a 
field of blood, strewn with heapsof the dead, arms torn from the body, eyes hollowed 
from the sockets, faces turned to the earth and buried in blood, ghastly pictures of 
death and pain, painted by the hand of the Briton, for the bright sun to shine down 
upon, for men to applaud, for the King to approve, for God to avenge. 

It is a sad and ghastly morning; and AVayne stands looking over the slaughtered 
heaps, surrounded by the little band of survivors, and as he gazes on this scene of 
horror, the Voice of Blood goes shrieking up to God for vengeance, and the ghostd 
of the slain darken the portals of Heaven with their forms of woe, and their voices 
mingle with the Voice of Blood. 

Was the Voice of Blood answered .' 

A yenr passed, and the ghosts of the murdered looked down from the portals of 
the Unseen, upon the ramparts of Stony Point. 

It is still night; the stars look calmly down upon the broad Hudson; and in the 
dim air of night towers the rock and fort of Stony Point. 

The Britishers have retired to rest. They sleep in their warm, quiet beds. They 
sleep with pleasant dreams of American maidens dishonored, and American fathers 
with gray hairs dabbled in blood. They shall have merrier dreams anon, I troW. 
Ay, ay ! 

All is quiet around Stony Point: the sentinel leans idly over the wall that bounds 
his lonely walk; he gazes down the void of darkness until his glance falls upon the 
broad and magnificent Hudson. He hears nothing — he sees nothing. 

It is a pity for that sentinel that his eyes are not keen and his glance piercing. 
Had his eyesight been but a little keener he might have seen Death creeping up 
that rampart in some hundred shapes— he might have seen the long talon-like fingers 
of the skeleton-god clutching for his own plump British throat. But his eyesight 
was not keen — more's the pity for him. 

Pity it was that the sentinel could not hear a little more keenly. Had his ears 
been good he might have heard a little whisper that went from two hundred tongues, 
OTound the raropa,rts of Stony Point. 



"remember PAOt,!." 31 

" General, what shall be the watchword ?" 

And then, had the sentinel inclined his ear over the ramparts, and listened very 
attentively indeed, he might have heard the answer, sweeping up to the heavens, 
like a voice of blood — 

" Remember Paoli !" 

IIo — bo! And so Paoli is to be remembered — and so the Voice of Blood shrieked 
not in the ears of God in vain. 

And so the vengeance for Paoli is creeping up the ramparts of the fort! Ho — ho! 
Pity Lord Grey were not here to see the sport! 

The sentinel was not blessed with supernatural sight or hearing; he did not see 
the figures creeping up the ramparts; he did not hear their whispers, until a rude 
hand clutched him round the throat, and up to the heavens swept the thunder 
Bliout — 

" Remember Paoli !" 

And then a rude bayonet pinned him to the wood of the ramparts, and then the 
esplanade of the fort, and its rooms and its halls were filled with silent avengers, and 
then came Britishers rushing from their beds, crying for quarter, and then they had 
it — the quarter of Paoli ! 

And then, through the smoke, and the gloom, and the bloodshed of that terrible 
night, with the liglit of a torch now falling on his face, with the gleam of starlight 
now giving a spectral appearance to his features, swept on, right on, over heaps of 
dead, one mngnificent form, grasping a stout broad-sword in his right hand, wliich 
sternly i»ose and sternly fell, cutting a British soldier down at every blow, and lay- 
ing them along the floor of the fort, in the puddle of their own hireling blood. 

Ghosts of Paoli — shout! are you not terribly avenged.' 

"Spare me— I have a wife — a child — they wait my return to England! Quarter — 
Quarter!"' 

" I mind me of a man named Shoelmire — he had a wife and a child — a mother, old 
and grny-haired, waited his return fiom the wars. On the night of Paoli he cried 
for quarter ! Such quarter I give you — Remember Paoli !" 

" t<ave me — quarter !" 

How that sword hisses through the air! 

"Remember Paoli !" 

"I have a gray-haired father! Quarter!" 

*' So had Daunton at Paoli! Oh, remember Paoli 1" 

"Spare me — you see I have no sword ! — Quarter!" 

" Friend, I would spare thee if I dared. But the ghosts of Paoli nerve my arm — 
•We had no swords at Paoli, and ye butchered us!' they shriek." 

"Uh, RKMEMBER PaOI.I !" 

And as the beams of the rising moon, streaming through yonder narrow window, 
for a moment light up the brow of the Avenger — dusky with battle-smoke, red with 
blood, deformed by passion — behold! That sword describes a fiery circle in the air, 
it hisses down, sinks into the victim's skull .' No ! 

His arm fulls nerveless by his side; the sword, that grim, rough blade, dented 
with the records of the fight of Brandy wine, clatters on. the floor. 

" It is my duty — the Ghosts of Paoli call to me — but I can not kill you !" shouts the 
American Warrior, and his weaponless hands are extended to the trembling Briton. 

All around is smoke, and darkness, and blood; the cry for quarter, and tlie dcatli- 



S2 "kemember paoli." 

sentence, Remember Paoli! but here, in the center of the scene of slaughter — yes, 
in the center of that flood of moonlight, pouring through the solitary window, behold 
a strange and impressive sight: 

The kneeling form — a gray-haired man, who has grown hoary doing murder in the 
name of Good King George — his hands uplifted in trembling supplication, his eyes 
starting from the dilating lids, as he shrieks for the mercy that he never gave ! 

The figure towering above him, with the Continental uniform fluttering in ribbons 
over his broad chest, his hands and face red with blood and darkened with the stain 
of powder, the veins swelling from his bared throat, the eye glaring from his com- 
pressed brow — 

Such were the figures disclosed by the sudden glow of moonlight ! 

And yet from that brow, dusky with powder, red with blood, there broke the gleam 
of mercy, and yet those hands, dripping with crimson stains, were extended to lift 
the cringing Briton from the dust. 

"Look ye — old man — at Paoli — " and that hoarse voice, heard amid the roar of 
midnight conflict, grew tremulous as a child's when it spoke those fatal words — at 
Paoli; "even through the darkness of that terrible night I beheld a boy, only 
eighteen years old, clinging to the stirrup of Lord Grey ; yes, by the light of a pistol 
flash I beheld his eyes glare, his hands quiver over his head, as he shrieked for 
' Quarter !' " 

"And he spared him ?" faltered the Briton. 

" Now, mark you, this boy had been consigned to my care by his mother, a brave 
American woman, who had sent this last hope of her widowed heart forth to 
battle " 

" And he spared him — " again faltered the Briton. 

"The same pistol which flashed its red light over his pale face and quivering 
hands sent the bullet through his brain. Lord Grey held that pistol, Lord Grey 
heard the cry for mercy, Lord Grey beheld the young face trampled into mangled 
flesh by his horse's hoofs ! And now, sir — with that terrible memory of Paoli 
stamped upon my soul — now, while that young face, with the red wound between the 
eyes, passes before me, I spare your life; — there lies my sword — I will not take it up 
again! Cling to me, sir, and do not part for an instant from my side, for my good 
soldiers have keen memories. I may forget, but hark! Do you hear them .' They 
do not massacre defenseless men in cold blood — ah, no ! They only — 

"REMEMBER PAOLI!" 

The name of Arnold is doomed to popular infamy- Lippard, how- 
ever, in looking over his career, could not help being fascinated by the 
impetuous bravery of the man. While he condemns, of course, Arnold's 
treason to his country, he finds in his dark history some extenuating 
facts, and he never lets slip an occasion to chronicle the courage and 
military genius of the traitor General, as, for instance, in 

THE ATTACK ON QUEBEC. 

It was the last day of the year 1775. 

Yonder, on the awful cliffs of Abraham, in the darkness of the daybreak, while the 
leaden sky glooms above, a band of brave msu are gathered ; yes, while the British 



THE ATTACK ON QUEBEC. 33 

are banqueting in Quebec, here, on this tremendous rock, in silent array, stand the 
Heroes of the Wilderness, joined with their brothers, the Continentals, from 
Montreal. 

That little army of one thousand have determined to attack the Gibraltar of 
America, with its rocks, its fortifications, its two thousand British soldiers. Here, 
on the very rock where, sixteen years ago, Montcalm and AVolfe poured forth their 
blood, now are gathered a band of brave men, who are seen in the darkness of this 
hour, extending like dim shadow-forms around two figures, standing alone in the 
center of the host. 

It is silent and sad as death. The roaring of the St. Lawrence alone is heard. 
Above, the leaden sky; around, the rock extending like a plain— yonder, far through 
the gloom, a misty light struggles into the sky ; that light gleams from the firesides 
of Quebec. 

Who are these that stand side by side in the center of the band ? 

That muscular form, with a hunting-shirt thrown over his breast, that form stand- 
ing there, with folded arms and head drooped low, while the eye glares out from be- 
neath the fanning brow, that is the Patriot Hero of the Wilderness, Benedict Arnold. 

By his side stands a graceful form, with strength and beauty mingled in its out- 
lines, clad in the uniform of a General, while that chivalrous countenance, with its 
eye of summer blue, turns anxiously from face to face. In that form you behold the 
doomed Montgomery. He has come from Montreal ; he has joined his little band 
with the Iron Men of Benedict Arnold. 

Who are these that gather round, with fur caps upon each brow, moccasins upon 
each foot ; Avho are these wild men, that now await the signal-word ? — You may 
know them by their leader, who, with his iron form, stands leaning on his rifle — th« 
brave Daniel Morgan. 

The daybreak wears on; the sky grows darker ; the snow begins to fall. 

Arnold turns to his brothers in arms. They clasp each other by the hand ; their 
lips move, but you hear no sound. 

"Arnold!" whispers Montgomery, " I will lead my division along the St. Law- 
rence, under the rocks of Cape Diamond. I will meet you in the center of Quebec — 
or die !" 

" Montgomery, I will attack the barrier on the opposite side. There is my hand! 
I will meet you yonder — yonder, in the center of Quebec — or perish !" 

It is an oath ! the word is given. Look there, and behold the two divisions sepa- 
rating over the rocks — this, with Montgomery, toward the St. Lawrence ; that, with 
Arnold and Morgan, toward the St. Charles. 

All is still. The rocks grow white with snow. All is still and dark, but grim 
shadows are moving on every side. 

Silence along the lines. Not a word on the peril of your lives ! Do you behold 
this narrow pass, leading to the first barrier yonder ? That barrier, grim with can- 
non, commands every inch of the pass. On one side, the St. Charles heaps up its 
rocks of ice ; on the other are piled the rocks of granite. 

Silence along the lines! The night is dark, the way is difficult, but Quebec is 
yonder ! Soldier, beware of those piles of rock ; a single misplaced footstep may 
arouse the sleeping soldier on yonder barrier. If he awake, we arc lost. On, brave 
band ; on, with stealthy footstep and rifle to each shoulder ; on, men of the wilderness, 
in your shirts of blue and fur ! 

3 



34 THE ATTACK ON QUEBEC. 

At the head of the column, with his drawn sword gleaming throngh the night, 
Benedict Arnold silently advances. 

Then a single cannon, mounted on a sled, and dragged forward by stout arms. 
Last of all, Daniel Morgan, with the riflemen of the Wilderness. 
In this order, along the narrow pass, with ice on one side and rocks on the other, 
the hero-band advance. The pass grows narrower — the battery nearer. Arnold can 
now count the cannon — nay, the soldiers who are watching there. Terrible suspense ! 
Every breath is hushed ; stout hearts now swell within the manly chest. 

Lips compressed, eyes glaring, rifles clenched, the Iron Men move softly on. 

Arnold silently turns to his men. 

And yonder, through the gloom, over the suburb of that city, over the rocks of that 
city's first barrier, there frowned the battery grim with cannon. 

There wait the sentinel and his brother soldiers. They hear no sound ; the falling 
snow echoes no footstep, and yet there are dim shadows moving along the rocks, 
moving on without a sound. 

Look ! Those shadows move up the rocks, to the very muzzles of the cannon. Now 
the sentinel starts up from his reclining posture ; he hears that stealthy tread. Ho 
springs to his cannon ! look how that flash glares out upon the night ! 

Is this magic ? There, disclosed by that cannon flash, long lines of bold riflemen 
start into view, and there — 

Standing in front of the cannon, his tall form rising in the red glare, with a sword 
in one hand, the Banner of the Stars in the other ; there, with that wild look which he 
ever wore in battle gleaming from his eye; there stands the patriot, Benedict Arnold ! 

On either side there is a mangled corse, but he stands firm. Before him yawns the 
cannon, but he springs upon those cannon; he turns to his men; he bids them on! 

" To-night we will feast in Quebec !" 

And the hail of the rifle-balls lays the British dead upon their own cannon. Now 
the cri^s of the conflict comes. 

Now behold this horrid scene of blood and death ! 

AVhile the snow falls over the faces of the dead, while the blood oi" the dying turns 
that snow to scarlet, gather round your leader, load and fire ; dash these British hire- 
lings upon the barrier's rocks, ye heroes of the Wilderness! 

Now Arnold is in his glory ! 

Now he knows nothing, sees nothing but that grim barrier frowning yonder! 
Those fires flashing from the houses — that rattling hail of bullets pattering on the 
enow — he sees; he feels them not! 

His eye is fixed upon the second barrier. He glances around that mass of rifles, 
now glittering in the red light ; he floats the Banner of the Stars on high. Hark to 
his shout ! 

" Never fear, my men of the Wilderness ! We have not come three hundred miles to 
fail now ! Have I not sworn to meet Montgomery there, to meet him in the center of 
the town, or die !" 

And then on, across the rocks and cannon of the barrier ! Hark ! that crash ; that 
yell ! The British soldiers are driven back over the dead bodies of comrades ; the 
first barrier is won ! 

Arnold stands victorious upon that barrier ; stands there with blood upon his face, 
his uniform, dripping from his sword ; stands there with the Banner of the Stars in 
his hand ! 



THE ATTACK ON QUEBEC. 35 

Vh ' sainted mother of Arriold, who, on that calm summer ni^ht, near forty 
years ago, laid your child upon the sacramental altar , now look from heaven, and, 
if saints pray for the children of earth, then pray that your son may die here upon 
the bloody barrier of Quebec, for then his name will be enshrined with Warrens 
and Washingtons of all time.' 

Even as Arnold stood there, brandishing that starry banner, a soldier rushed up to 
his side, and with horror quivering on his lip, told that the gallant Montgomery had 
fallen. 

Fallen at the head of his men, covered with wounds ; the noble heart that beat bo 
high an hour ago was now cold as the winter snow on which his form was laid. 

Leaving Arnold for a moment on the first barrier of Quebec, let us trace the foot- 
steps of his brother hero. 

Do you behold that massive rock which arises from the dark river into the darker 
sky ? Along that rock of C:ipe Dirjnond, while the St. Lawrence dashes the ice in 
huge masses against its base, along that rock, over a path that leads beneath a shelf 
of granite, with but room for the foot of a single man, Richard Montgomery leads his 
band. 

Stealthily, silently, my comrades ! Not a word! Let us climb, this narrow path. 
Take care; a misplaced footstep, and you will be hurled down upon the ice of the dark 
river. Up, my men, and on ! Yonder it is at Last, the block-house, and beyond it, 
at the distance of two hundred paces, the battery, dark with cannon ! 

With words like these Montgomery led on his men. The terrible path was 
ascended ; he stood before the blcck-houso. Now, comrades ! How that rifle-blaze 
flashed far over the rocks down to the St. Lawrence ! An axe ! an axe! by all that 
is brave ! He seizes the axe, the brave Montgomery ; with his own arm he hews the 
palisades. The way is clear for his men. A charge with blazing rifles, a shout, the 
block-house is won ! 

Talk of your British bayonets ! ha ! ha ! Where did they ever stand the blaze of 
American rifles .' Where? Oh, perfumed gentlemen, who in gaudy uniforms strut 
Chestnut Street, talk to me of your charge of bayonets, and you rules of discipline, 
and your system of tactics, and I will reply by a single word— one American rifle- 
man, in his rude hunting-shirt, was worth a thousand such as j'ou. Who mocked 
tlie charge of bayonets en Bunker Hill .' Who captured Burgoyno .■" Who, at Brandy- 
wine, kept back all the panoply of British arms from morning till night .' — the Rifle- 
men. 

One shout, the block-house is won ! Now on toward the battery ! load and advance ! 
Montg; mery still in the front. With a yell the British behold them approach ; they 
floe from their cannon. Montgomery mounts the walls of rocks and iron ; his sword 
glenms en higli like a beacon for his men. At this moment hnsh your breath and 
look ! While Montgomery clings to the rocks of the battery, a single British soldier 
turns from his flight and fires one of those grim cannon, nnd then is gone again. 
A blaze upon the right— a smoke— a chorus of groans ! 

Montgomery lays mangled upon tlie rock, while around him arc scattered four other 
corses. Their blood mingles in one stream. ^ 

A rude riflemnn advnncos, bends down, nnd looks upon tliat form, quivering for an 
instant only, and then cold— upon that face, torn nnd mangled, as with the print of a 
horse's hoof; that face, but a moment before, glowing with a hero's soul. He lookf 
for a moment, and then, >V!fh panic in his face, turns to his comrades. 



36 THE AUTACK ON QUEBEC^ 

" Montgomery is dead !" he shrieks ; and ■with one accord they retreat — they flj 
from that fatal rock. 

But one form lingers. It is that boyL'jh form, graceful almost to ■womanly beautyj 
■with the brow of a genius, the eye of an eagle. That boy ran away from college 
bore Washington's commands 300 miles, and no^w, covered ■with the blood of the fight 
stands beside the mangled body of Montgomery, his dark eye wet ■with tears. In tha 
form behold the man who ■was almost President of the United States and Emperor of 
Mexico — the enigma of our history, Aaron Burr. 

They are gone. Montgomery is left alone, with no friends to compose limbs or close 
those glaring eyes. And at this moment, while the snow falls over his face, while the 
■warm blood of his heart poura out upon the rock, yonder, in his far-off home, hii^ 
young wife kneels by her bed, and prays God to hasten his return ! 

He died in the flush of heroism, in the prime of early manhood, leaving his countrj 
the rich legacy of his fame — leaving his blood upon the rock of Quebec. 

The day is coming when an army of Free Canadians will ertcamp on that very rock 
their rifles pointed at the British battery, their Republican flag waving in the for- 
lorn hope against the British banner ! Then, perhaps, some true American hearl 
■will wash out the blood of Montgomery from the rock of Quebec. 

Arnold stood upon the first barrier, while his heart throbbed at the story of Mont- 
gomery's fate. 

Then that expression of desperation, which few men could look upon without fear, 
came over Arnold's face. Now look at him as, with his form swelling ■with rage, ht 
rushes on ! He springs from that barrier ; he shouts to the iron men ; he rings th( 
name of Morgan on the air. 

He points to the narrow street over which the second barrier is thrown. 

" Montgomery is there !" he shouts in a voice of thunder ; " there, waiting foi 
ns!" 

Hurrah ! How the iron men leap at the word ! There is the quick clang of ram- 
rods — each rifle is loaded. They rush on ! 

At their head, his whole form convulsed, his lips writhing, his chest hea^ving un-i 
conscious of danger, as though the ghost of Montgomery was there before him, Bene-I 
diet Arnold rushes on ! I 

Even as he rushes, he falls ; even as you look upon him in his battle rage, ■with his 
right leg shattered, he falls. 

But does he give up the contest ? 

By the ghost of Montgomery, No ! 

No ! He lifts his face from the snow now crimsoned with his blood — he follows ■with 
his startling eyes the path of Morgan — he shouts with his thunder tones his well- 
known battle-cry. 

He beholds his men rush on amid light and flame ; he hears the crack of the rifleJ 
the roar of cannon, the tread of men rushing forward to the conflict. 

Then he endeavors to rise. A gallant soldier offers his arm to the wounded hero. 

He rises, stands for a moment, and then falls; but still his soul is firm — still his 
eye glares upon the distant flight. Not until he makes his bed, there on the coldi 
snow, in a pool of his own blood, until his eyes fail and his right leg stiffens, does hi^ 
soul cease to beat with the pulsations of battle. Then, and then only, the Hero of the 
Wilderness is carried back to yonder rock. 

Would to God that he had died there ! 



NATHAN HALE. 37 

Would to God that he had died there with all his honorable wounds about him ! 
[3 for a stray bullet, a chance shot, to still his proud heart forever ! that he had 

•aid side by side with Montgomery, hallowed forever by his death of glory ! thea 

.he names of Arnold and Montgomery, mingled in one breath, would have been joined 

brever in one song of immortality. 

But Montgomery died alone ; his blood stains the rock of Quebec. Arnold lived ; 
ais ashes, accursed by his countrymen, rest in an unknown grave. 
: When the news of the gallant attack on Quebec — gallant, though unsuccessful — 

'eached Philadelphia, the Congress rewarded Benedict Arnold with the commission of 
h Brigadier-General. 

i The same mob who afterward — while Arnold was yet true to his country — stoned 
iiim in the streets, and stoned the very arm that had fought for them, now cracked 

heir throats in shouting his name. 
; The very city which afterward was the scene of his dishonorable persecution, 

low flashed out from its illuminated casements, glory of the Hero of Quebec, Bene- 
dict Arnold. 
1 
, NATHAN HALE. 

It was a calm, clear evening in the early spring of 1775 when a young man came 
• his native home to bid his aged mother farewell 

I see that picture before me now. 
I A two-story house, built of gray-stone, vrith a small garden extending from the 
loor to the roadside, while all around arise the orchard trees fragrant with tlie first 
lirst blossoms of spring. Yonder you behold the hay-rick and the barn, with the 
owing cattle grouped together in the shadows. 

It is a quiet hour ; every thing seems beautiful and holy. There is a purple flush 
I "pon the western sky ; a somber richness of shadow resting upon yonder woods ; a 
lleep serenity, as if from God, imbues and hallows this evening hour. 
1 Yonder on the cottage porch, with the rich glow of the sunset on her face, sits the 
;,ged mother, the silvery hair parted above her pale brow. The Bible lays open on 
|ier knees. Her dress is of plain, rude texture, but there is that about her counten- 
' .nee which makes you forget her homespun costume. Her eyes, their dark blue con- 
rasting with the withered outlines of her countenance, are upraised. She is gazing 
n the face of the son, who bends over her shoulder and returns her glance. 

His young form is arrayed in a plain blue hunting-frock faced with fur, while his 
•ifle rests against the door, and his pistols are girded to his waist by a belt of dark 
eather. A plain costume this; but gaze upon the face of that young man and tell 
ne, do you not read a clear soul shining from those dark eyes ? That white brow, 
hadowed by masses of brown hair, bears the impress of thought, while the pale cheek 
«lls the story of long nights given to the dim old Hebrew Bible, with its words of 
;iant meaning and organ-like music; to the profane classics of Greece and Rome, the 
;ublime reveries of Plato, the impassioned earnestness of Demosthenes, or the indig- 
lant eloquence of Cicero. 

Yes, fresh from the halls of Yafe, the poetry of the Past shining serenely in his 
K)ul, to his childhood's home comes the young student to claim his mother's blessing 
ind bid her a long farewell. 

But why this rifle, these pistols, this plain uniform .' 

I will tell you. 



33 NATHAN HAI.E. 

One day, as he sat bending over that Hebrew volume, "with its great thoughts spoken 
in a tongue now lost to man in the silence of ages, be looked from his window and 
beheld a dead body carried by, the glassy eyes upturned to the sky, while the stiff- 
ened limb hung trailing on the ground. 

It was the first dead man of Lexington. 

That sight roused his ' blood ; the voice of the Martyrs of Bunker Hill seemed 
shrieking forever in his ears. He flung aside the student's gown ; he put on the 
hunting-shirt. A sad farewell to those well-worn volumes which had cheered the 
weariness of many a midnight watch, one last look around that lonely room whose 
walls had heard his earnest soliloquies— and then he was a soldier. 

The Child of Genius felt the strong cords of Patriotism drawing him toward the 
last bed of the Martyrs on Bunker Hill. 

And now in the sunset hour he stands by his mother's side, taking the one last look at 
that wrinkled face, listening for the last time to the tremulous tones of that solenin voice. 

" I did hope, my child," said the aged woman, " I did hope to see you ministering 
at the altar of Almighty God, but the enemy is in the land, and your duty is 
plain before you. Go, my son — fight like a man for your country. In the hour of 
battle remember that God is with your cause ; that His arm will guide and guard 
you, even in the moment of death. War, my child, is at best a fearful thing, a ter- 
rible license for human butchery ; but a wax like this is holy in the eyes of God. 
Go— and when you fight may you conquer, or if you fall in death remember your 
mother's blessing is on your head !" 

And in that evening hour the aged woman stood erect and laid her withered hand 
upon his banded head. 

A moment passed, and he had grasped his rifle, he had muttered the last farewell. 
While the aged woman stood on the porch following him with her eyes, he turned his 
steps toward the road. 

But a form stood in his path, the form of a young woman clad in the plain costume 
of a New England girl. Do you behold a voluptuous beauty waving in the outlinea 
of that form .' Is the hair dark as night, or long, glossy, waving, and beautiful ? 
Are those hands soft,white, and delicate .' You behold none of these ; for the young 
girl who stands there in the student's path has none of the dazzling attraction of 
personal beauty. A slender form, a white forehead, with the brown hair plainly 
parted around that unpretending countenance, hands somewhat roughened by toil ; 
such were the attractions of that New England girl. 

And yet there was a something that chained your eyes to her face, and made your 
heart swell as you looked upon her. It was the soul which shone from her eyes and 
glowed over her pallid cheek. It was the deep, ardent, all-trusting love, the eternal 
faith of her woman's nature, which gave such deep, vivid interest to that plain face, 
that pale white brow. 

She stood there, waiting to bid her lover farewell, and the tear was in her eye, the 
convulsive tremor of suppressed emotion on her lip. Yet with an unfaltering voice 
she bid hira go fight for his country and conquer in the name of God. 

" Or" — she exclaimed, placing her hands against his breast, while her eyes were 
riveted to his face, " should you fall in the fight, I will pray God to bless your last 
hour with all the glory of a soldier's death !" 

These were the last words she said ; he grasped her hand, impressed his kiss upoa 
her lip, and went slowly from his home. 



NATHAN HALE. 39 

When ■we look for him again the scene is clianged. It is night, yet through the 
gloom the white tents of the British army I'ise up like ghosts on the summit of the 
Long Island hills. It is night, yet the stars look down upon that Red Cross banner 
now floating sullenly to the ocean breeze. 

We look for the Enthusiast of Yale. Yonder, in a dark room, through whose soli- 
tary window pours the mild gleam of the stars, yonder we behold the dusky outlines 
of a human form, with head bent low aud arms folded over the chest. It is very dark 
in the room, very still, yet can you discover the bearing of the soldier in the uncer- 
tain outline of that form, yet can you hear the tread of the sentinel on the sands 
without. 

Suddenly that form arises and draws near the solitary window. The stars gleam 
over a pale face, with eyes burning with unnatural light. It is dusky and dim, the 
faint light, but still you can read the traces of agony like death, anguish like despair 
stamped on the brow, and cheek, and lip of that youthful countenance. 

You can hear a single, low-toned moan, a muttered prayer, a broken ejaculation. 
Those eyes are upraised to the stars, and then the pale face no longer looks from the 
window. That form slowly retires and is lost in the darkness of the room. 

Meanwhile, without the room, on yonder slope of level ground crowning the ascent 
of the hill the sound of hammer and saw breaks on the silence of the hour. Dim 
forms go to and fro in the darkness ; stout pieces of timber are planted in the ground, 
and at last the work is done. All is still. But, like a phantom of evil, from the 
brow of yonder hill arises that strange structure of timber, with the rope dangling 
from its summit. 

There is a face gazing from yonder window at this thing of evil ; a face with lips 
pressed between the teeth, eyes glaring with unnatural light. 

Suddenly a footstep is heard, the door of that room is flung open, and a blaze of 
light fills the place. In the door-way stands a burly figure clad in the British uni- 
form, with a mocking sneer upon that brutal countenance. 

The form which we lately beheld in the gloom now rises and confronts the British 
soldier. It needs no second glance to tell us that we behold the Enthusia.st of Yale. 
That dress is soiled and torn, that face is sunken in the cheeks, wild and glaring in 
the eyes, yet we can recognize the brave youth who went forth from his home on that 
calm evening in spring. 

lie confronts the Executioner, for that burly figure in the handsome red coat, with 
the glittering ornaments, is none other than the Provost of the British army. 

" I am to die in the morning," began the student, or prisoner as you may choose to 
call him. 

" Yes," growled the Provost, " you were taken as a spy, tried as a spy, sentenced 
as a spy, and to-morrow morning you will be hanged as a spy." 

That was the fatal secret. General Washington desired information from Long 
Island, where the British encamped. A young soldier appeared, hLs face glowing with 
a high resolve. He would go to Long Island ; he would examine the enemy's posts ; 
he would peril his life for Washington. Nay, he would peril more than his life — he 
would peril his honor. For the soldier who dies in the bloody onset of a forlorn hope 
dies in honor : but the man who is taken as a spy swings on the gibbet, an object of 
loathing and scorn. But this young soldier would dare it all — the gallows and tha 
dishonor — all for the sake of Washington. 

" General," was the sublime expression of the Enthusiast, " when I volunteered in 



40 NATHAN HALE. 

the army of liberty it was my intention to devote my soul to tlie cause. It is not for 
me now to choose the manner or the method of the service which I am to perform. I 
only ask, in what capacity does my country want me ? You tell me that I will ren- 
der her great service by this expedition to Long Island, All I can answer is with 
one word — bid me depart and I will go !" 

He went, obtained the information which he sought, and was about to leave the 
shore of the Island for New Yorli when he was discovered. 

Now, in the chamber of the condemned felon, he awaited the hour of his fate, his 
face betraying deep emotion, yet it was not the agitation of fear. Death he could 
willingly face, but the death of the Gibbet ! 

He now approached the British ofiBcer and spoke in a calm yet hollow voice : 

" My friend, I am to die to-moi-row. It is well. I have no regrets to spend upon 
my untimely fate. But as the last request of a dying man, let me implore you to 
take charge of these letters." 

He extended some four or five letters, among which was one to his betrothed, one 
to his mother, and one to Washington. 

" Promise me that you will have these letters delivered after I am dead." 

The Briton shifted the lamp from one hand to the other, and then with an oath 
made answer : 

" By , I'll have nothing to do with the letters of a spy !" 

The young man dropped the letters on the floor as though a bullet had torn them 
from his grasp. His head sunk on his breast. The cup of liis agony was full. 

" At least," said he, lifting his large bright eyes, " at least you will procure me a 
Bible, you will send me a clergyman .' I am ready to die, but I wish to die the death 
of a Christian." 

" You should have thought o' these things before, young man," exclaimed the 
Liveried Hangman. " As for Bible or Preacher, I can tell you at once that youll get 
neither through me." 

The young man sank slowly in his chair and covered his face with his hands. The 
brave Briton, whose courage had been so beautifully manifested in these last insults 
to a dying man, stood regarding the object of his spite with a brutal scowl. 

Ere a moment was gone the young man looked up again and exclaimed : 

" For the love of Christ, do not deny me the consolations of religion in this hour !" 

A loud laugh echoed around the room, and the Condemned Spy was in darkness. 

Who shall dare to lift the vail from that Enthusiast's heart, and picture the agony 
which shook his soul during the slow-moving hours of his last night? Now his 
thoughts were with his books, the classics of Greece and Rome, or the pages of the 
Hebrew volume, where the breeze of Palestine swells over the waves of Jordan, and 
the songs of Israel resound forevermore ; now with his aged mother or his betrothed ; 
and then a vision of that great course of glory which his life was to have been came 
home to his soul. 

That course of glory, those high aspirations, those yearnings of Genius after the 
Ideal, were now to be cut off forever by — the Gibbet's rope ! 

I will confess that to me there is something terrible in the last night of the Con- 
demned Spy. Never does my eye rest upon the page of American history that I do 
not feel for his fate, and feel more bitterly when I think of the injustice of that h's- 
tory. Yes, let the truth be spoken, our history is terribly unjust to the poor — the 
neglected— the Martyrs, whose fate it was not to suffer in the storm of battle, but in 



NATUAN HALK. 41 

the cell or by the gibbet's rope. How many brave hearts Tvere choked to death by 
the rope, or buried beneath the cells of the jail after the agonies of fever ! Where do 
you find their names in history ? 

And the young man with a handsome form, a born-of-God genius, a highly edu- 
cated mind — tell us, is there no tear for him ? 

We weep for Andre, and yet he was a mere gambler, who staked his life against a 
General's commission. We plant flowers over his grave, and yet he was a plotter fi-om 
motives altogether mercenary. We sing hymns about him, and yet with all his ac- 
comiDlishments he was one of the main causes of Arnold's ruin ; he it was who helped 
to drag the Patriot down into the Traitor. 

But this young man who watches his last night on yonder Long Island shore — 
■where are tears for him .' 

Night passed away and morning came at last. Then they led him forth to the 
sound of the muffled drum and measured footsteps. Then — without a Bible, or 
Preacher, or friend— not even a dog to wail for him — they placed him beneath the 
gibbet, iinder that blue sky, with the pine coflin before his eyes. 

Stern looks, scowling brows, red uniforms and bristling bayonets were all around — 
but for him, the Enthusiast and the Genius, where was the kind voice or the tender 
hand .' 

Yet in that hour the breeze kissed his cheek, and the vision of Manhattan Bay, 
"with its foam-crested waves and green islands, was like a dream of peace to his soul. 
The rough hands of the Hangman tied his hand and bared his neck for the rope. 
Then, standing on the death-cart, with the rope about his neck and Eternity before 
him, that young man was very pale, but calm, collected, and firm. Then he called 
the brutal soldiery, the Pi,efugee Hangman, to witness that he had but one regret — 

And that regret, not for his aged mother, not even for his meek-eyed betrothed, not 
even for ihe darkness of that hour — but, said the Martyr : 
" I regret that I have only one life to lose for my country." 

That was his last word, for ere tlie noble sentiment was cold on his lips they choked 
him to death. The horse moved, the cart passed from under his feet ; the Martyr 
hung dangling in the air ! Where was now that clear, white brow, that brilliant 
eye, that well-formed mouth .' Look — yes, look and behold that thing palpitating 
with agony — behold that thing suspended in the air, with a blackened mass of flesh 
instead of a face ! 

Above, the bright sky — around, the crowd — far away, the free waves — and yet 
here, tosses and plunges the image of God tied by the neck to a gibbet ! 

Like a dog he died— like a dog they buried him. No Preacher, no prayer, no 
friend, not even a dog to howl over his grave. There was only a pine box and a dead 
body, with a few of the vilest wretches of the British camp. That was the Martyr's 
funeral. 

At this hour, while I speali, in the dim shadows of Westminster Abbey, a white 
monument arises in honor of John Andre, whose dishonorable actions were, in some 
measure, forgotten in pity for his hideous death. 

But this man of Genius, who went forth from the halls of Yale to die like a dog for 
bis country on the heights of Long Island, where is the marble pillar carved with the 
letters of his name .' 

And yet we will remember him and love him for evermore. And should the day 
come when a Temple will be erected to the Memory of the Heroes of the Revolution — 



42 AN ELOQUENT ESSAY. 

the Man-Gods of our Past — -then, beneath the light of that temple's dome, among tho 
sculptured images of Washington and his compatriots, we will place one poor broken 
column of New England granite, surmounted by a single leaf of laurel, inscribed 
with the motto — " Alas that I have but one life for my country !" and this poor 
column, and leaf of laurel, and motto shall be consecrated with the name of 

NATHAN HALE. 

The book is enriched by a masterly introductory essay from the pen of 
C. Chauncey Burr, then a popular Universalist clergyman settled in the 
Callowhill Street Church, Philadelphia — one who was the earliest to 
vindicate the genius of our author, and who continued an affectionate and 
devoted friend of Lippard through all the vicissitudes of his life. 

"Of Washington and his Generals" Mr. Burr says : 

Altogether we take this to be the best book that has been written on this portion 
of our history. In the dull popular idea of history this book is not merely a history. 
It is something more. It is a series of battle pictures, with all the truth of history 
in them, where the heroes are made living, present, and visible to our senses. Here 
we do not merely turn over the dead, dry facts of General Wasliingtou's battles, as 
if coldly digging them out of their tomb — but we see the living general as he moves 
round over the field of glory. We almost hear the word of his command. We are 
quite sure that we see the smoke rolling up from the field of battle, and heur the 
dreadful roar of the cannon as it spouts its death-flame in the fiice of the living and 
the dead. Through all we see dashing on the wild figure of mad Anthony Wayne, 
followed with the broken battle-cry of Pulaski ; until along the line and over the 
field the images of death and terror are only hidden from our view by the shroud of 
smoke and flame. 

There is not a relic of the Revolution, in the shape of an old man or woman, 
within a good hundred miles of the scene which has not been visited by Mr. Lippiird, 
and their old memories sounded to the bottom until the last and smallest fact should 
be brought up. Not an inch of ground on the old battle-fields that he has not explored. 
Hardly an old revolutionary newspaper has been allowed to rest in peace; that, too 
must be dug from its garret- grave and stripped of its cobweb shroud to satisfy this 
insatiate hunger for revolutionary crumbs. 

At last, all that survives either of fact or legend, of these battles and battle-men, 
is brought to light : painted before us, so that we can look upon every feature of the 
perilous times. Painted indeed. Of all the American authors, poets, or novelists, 
Lippard comes nearest to the painter, so perfect and powerful are his descriptions. 
» # * * * « « 

But the poetry of these Legends, perhaps, is the first thing that will arrest the 
attention of the competent reviewer. This indeed is the first thing in all Lippard's 
works. Whatever we may say of his ability for the most accomplished of historians, 
of his genius as a novelist, I take him to be as much poet as any thing else after all. 
Though we may find him utterly without capacity in rhythm or rhyme, still he is a 
poet. Whoever that old man Ossian was, he was such another rhymeless rliythmless 
poet, for all that I can see. 

Mr. Lippard's genius beholds the Hudson River as " a mirror in its mountain 



PROSK-POETKY. 43 

frame."'' Or a " Queen who rciwses in a strange majesty, a crown of snow V2)on her 
forehead of granite, the leaf of Indian corn, the spear of wheat, mingled in the 
girdle which binds her waist, the murmur of rippling water ascending from the 
valley beneath her feet." 

The Susquehanna is " a warrior who rushes from his home in the forest, hews his 
way through primeval mountains, and howls in his wrath as he hurries to the ocean. 
Ever and anon, like a conqueror overladened with the spoils of battle, he scatters a 
green is/and in his path." 

The Wissahikon is " a Prophetess, who with her clieek embrowned by the sun, and 
her dark hair — not gathered in clusters or curling in ringlets — falling straightly to 
her white shoulders, comes forth from her cavern in the woods and speaks to us in a 
low, soft tone that awes and wins our hearts, and looks at us with eyes whose steady 
light and supernatural brightness bewilder our souls." 

To our author's fancy also, " The night comes slowly down." And he could see 
the strong man bearing off " the little girl whose golden hair floated over his dark 
dress like sunshine over a pall." To his ears the " ivind sweeps through the woods, 
not with a boisterous roar, but with the strange, sad cadence of an organ, whose 
notes swell away through the arches of a dim cathedral aisle." 

To his vision also there are sunny days in winter, when " the glad maiden, May, 
seems to bloiv her warm breath in the grim face of February, until the rough old 
warrior laughs again." 

lie sees the smoke of the battle-field as " The shroud of death for millions." 

To him the Wissahikon is a thing of beauty for ever — " /; is a poem of beauty, 
■where the breeze mourns its anthem through the tall pines; where the silver waters 
send up their voices of joy ; where calmness and quiet and intense solitude awe the 
eoul, and fill the heart with bright thoughts and golden dreams woven in the luxury 
of the summer hour." 

I take these to be good specimens enough of poetry. Nearly every page in the 
whole book is alive with this quaint or beautiful imagery. Such a book has never 
appeared in this country before — to give us so poetical and striking a view of the 
age of the Revolution. 

Somehow I think histoi-y ought to be written with somewhat of the poet's 
inspiration. It, is only the poet who can call back to us the remote and dead, and 
invest them with a visible and life-like form. He alone can 

" Call up the man who left half told 
The story of Cambusoaii bold." 

The effigies of Lippard's heroes have almost as much life as the scene of their 
utmost actions. Nothing is dead any more that his imagination once grasps. He 
continually reminds us of that French poet-historian, Michelet, who, take him all in 
all, is perhaps the sweetest and best historian the world allows us just now. 

The essay closes with a deserved tribute to Lippard's sincerity. 

Another cause of our author's speedy triumph over nearly every obstacle that lay 
in his way is his sincerity— his great passionate truth to himself. His rebukes of the 
■wrong arc all honest — felt in his heart ; his praise of good men and brave men is 
honest too. If he lays bare the black heart of the coward, or any traitor, it is be- 
cause his whole natural soul is in arms against these things. If he writes books, it 



44 . A FULL- LENGTH PICTURE OF LIPPARD. 

is not for the sake of writing — not altogether for bread ; not wholly for fame even, 
but because he must write. His nature forces him. Wild and chaotic as the 
" Quaker City" may appear to the shallow mind, still the deeper, purer judgment 
sees in it all the earnest skillful work of the dissecting-knife — the faithful laying bare 
of black hearts and oppressive institutions. This was his aim. His whole heart was 
honest and most true in the work. That is why he succeeded. He thought of these 
wrongs — /)/s wrongs — until they goaded him into madness; until, whithersoever he 
went, in the blaze of noon, in the silence of dusk, night, bitter mockery and chatter- 
ing fiends laughed at him through every chink and crevice in the wall. With scorn, 
and wrath, and execrations he flung defiance in their face, and shouted a battle-cry 
over the dumb anguish of the millions perishing in conventional lies, until it rolls 
away like thunder through a hundred presses, and dies at last into whispers on a 
thousand tongues. None but the sincere man can do that. Insincerity crucifies the 
heart — then every thing born of it is a forced birth. Its only sign of life is the gasp 
of death. That is the reason why so many books (well written enough) fall dead 
from the press. They were written without any high aim, without any great sin- 
cerity, and they must die. Sincerity is such a great thing— such an inspirer of 
genius— such a sanctifier of its actions — beckons it so serenely on the path of fame, I 
wish all men had it. It enables one to look .out so calmly upon the storm, as if eyes 
of love looked at us through the black cloud ; as if some lips of heaven kissed off the 
tears from our cheeks, and the hand of God lay quiet on our breast to soothe the 
chafed and injured heart. There is something so sweet in sincerity ! I wish all men 
had it. I wish all men to succeed, and there can be no success without sincerity. 
Take that thought home with thee, reader ; and when next we meet again, may it be 
to speak well of thee and thy works — to give thee a good hand of welcome, and sit 
down and talk about thee as about a brother. I shall be glad to do it. 

It is time to draw a full-length picture of Lippard. The reader's cu- 
riosity is excited to know what manner of man he was — how he dressed 
■ — all about him. In these things we can never be too minute. 

Meeting such a man in the great street of a great city, Broadway, for 
instance, you would say, " This is a different person from the thousands 
of people swarming past me. I am wearied by this long procession of 
commonplace faces — this eternal reproduction of coats all of a cut — this 
tiresome similarity between one man and all his fellows, looking as much 
alike as a bushel of peas. Who is this original gentleman ? It refreshes 
me to behold him." 

The portrait in this book gives a good idea of our author's face. A 
verbal likeness may, however, be not altogether words wasted. Lip- 
pard's face was full of expression ; every feature had some peculiarity ; 
while the general outline was symmetrical. His head was large — twenty- 
three inches and a half in circumference. The forehead projected slightly 
over the eyes, rose with a graceful swell to a fair height, and had that 
oval fullness across the temples always to be found in the phrenological 
developments of imaginative men. Veins started out upon the brow ; it 



ni3 TOCTHFL'L LOVE. 45 

seemed to throb with thouglit. His eyes were of a deep hazel, large and 
shapely, shaded by heavy lashes, and flashing with a strange inner light. 
They revealed his thoughts as in a mirror ; they glared with indignation, 
melted with pity, or beamed the soft look of adoration by turns. So do 
every body's eyes, but with little of his variableness or intensity. In him 
they were perpetually changing, as his thoughts swung — and they were 
never stationary — from one great passion to another. Nose nearly 
Grecian ; mouth full, almost to voluptuousness. His lips were tremu- 
lously sensitive, and curved with scorn, quivered with emotion, or 
dimpled with laughter — 

" You know the thoughts he means to speak 
Ere from his opening lips they break." 

Add an olive complexion, very high cheek-bones, a beautifully-rounded 
chin, long, dark hair, parted from the left, curving softly past his forehead, 
and dropping over the ears in curls upon his shoulders, and you have 
Lippard's portrait. 

In dress our author displayed considerable independence. He had a 
style of his own, which did not change with the caprice of fashions. His 
habitual attire was a blue coat (with a scolloped velvet collar) buttoned 
tight at the waist. In summer, a white vest — never departed from. 

Lippard was about five feet eight inches in height, and straight as an 
Indian ; shoulders broad and Avaist as small as a woman's ; head spirited- 
ly borne ; small feet and hands ; carriage upon the street or in the social 
circle always pliant and graceful ; his deportment never awkward. To 
close our description, he was pronounced by ladies — supreme in such 
matters — to be a very handsome man. 

We turn now to one of the tenderest phases of this " strange, eventful 
history." Lippard was not a mere dreamer of love. The soft, sweet 
aspirations that run through his most terrible books, like the delicate fila- 
gree of gold upon a warrior's sword, were all suggested by a beautiful 
living presence. Far back in his boyhood his vague aflections found a 
shrine. The object of this first fresh tribute of his enthusiastic heart was 
a Miss Rose Newman, a young girl, the daughter of respectable parents, 
residing in Philadelphia. She was just the maiden most likely to capti- 
vate the young author. Her personal beauty was not her least charm. 
Her complexion was a delicate brunette, upon whose soft surface the 
subtlest shades of thought revealed themselves. Long curls of dark hair 
dropped naturally about her fair young brow. Her shape was symmetri- 
cal — gracefully facile. But to Lippard her greatest attraction was her 
delicately feminine character. She was a woman born to love, as well 



46 EOMANTIC MARRIAGE BY MOONLIGHT. 

as to be beloved. She appears to have been full of gentle, affectionate 
impulses, soothing by her mild counsels and sustaining by her soft, sym- 
pathy. To her great amiability she joined the fascination of a playful wit, 
which always amused — never wounded. 

It is r.ot strange that a young creature like this should secure the 
affection of Lippard. It at once took the form of a strong, lasting pas- 
sion. He met her almost daily, and life seemed to renew itself in her 
presence. When away from the city he solaced the weary hours of his 
absence by a constant correspondence with her. She was the light to 
which he looked for cheer amid all the distresses of early life. It was 
her encouraging voice that led him to devote the da3-s and nights of his 
youth to patient literary toil. And her approval was his sweetest and 
proudest reward. 

His marriage with Miss Rose Newman took place in the year 1847. 
It was no humdrum affair, of the usual stereotyped pattern. Like Lippard's 
love — like his whole existence — it was romantic. We doubt whether 
any one but he would have conceived an idea so strange and poetical. 
By his own request he was married on the banks of the Wissahikon by 
moonlight. The rites were performed by C. Chauncey Burr. The only 
spectator present was Harriet Newell Lippaid, the sister of the bride- 
groom. 

The scene was worthy of a painting, though no colors could do justice 
to the weird, supernal beauty of the place and the hour. The bridal 
party stood upon the summit of a huge rock which frowns over the wild 
Wissahikon. Below, dashed the dark running waters of the river, whose 
music Lippard had heard and interpreted with mystic prophecies in his 
infancy. " Up and down the glen of the Wissahikon," in the eloquent 
language of Mr. Burr, " the poor orphan had wandered weeping, with a 
single crust of bread in his pocket," " and day after day wondered when 
he should die." He had taken his first lessons of nature amid its grand 
and gloomy scenery. He had stretched himself under the huge trees 
that shade its waves, and dreamed strange dreams of future fame 
and a humanity to be helped and gladdened by his labors. It was meet 
that he should be married there — on a spot consecrated by his early joys 
and sorrows, and made famous by his legendary pen. Afar off, dimly 
seen, stretched a landscape through whose fair bosom wound the Wissa- 
hikon " like a thread of silver ;" and over all — rock, river, hill, valley, 
trees — shone the loving moon, bathing all objects in a golden light. The 
whole earth seemed glorified. To a Poet's mind Nature had put on her 
richest attire in honor of the nuptials. As Lippard stood there upon 



" THE LEGENDS OF MEXICO." 47 

that wild rock in the face of high Heaven, and took that soft, white hand 
in his — as he vowed to love and cherish his bride through life — we know 
with what truthfulness the promise was uttered. It was never broiicn. 

After the impressive ceremony was concluded, the happy party still 
lingered about the spot fav into the evening. Its wondrous beauty, its 
stern grandeur, its historic fume, as imbedded in the writings of Lippard, all 
made it glorious. But Love — consummated with the most beautiful and 
touching rites — Love heightened all its charms ; it sanctified the spot. 

The Mexican war was about this time occupying the public mind. 
The mine of revolutionary research was by no means exhausted — it was 
exhaustlcss to Lippard. But he wanted variety, and he turned with zest 
to the battle-fields of Mexico, still smoking with the blood of carnage. 
" The Legends of Mexico" appeared in " Scott's Weekly," a Philadelphia 
newspaper. The hand which traced "Washington and his Generals" 
had lost none of its old skill and vigor. " The Legends" instantly bounded 
into popularity, and upon being completed were thrown into book form, 
and sold by thousands all over the country. Only one word will fitly 
describe " The Legends of Mexico." It is a fascinating little volume. 
We defy any critic or cold-blooded literalist to read it through and not 
confess himself charmed, to say nothing about being instructed by the 
perusal. One of the best sketches of the book is " Monterey." It ex- 
hibits the genius of the author in several striking lights : 

MONTEREY. 

They tell me that Monterey is beautiful; that it lies among the snow-white 
mountains whose summits reach the clouds. 

It sleeps beneath us now. 

While the moon, parting from the white mountain tops, sails in the serene upper 
air, we will stand among tlic trees of the Walnut Grove and behold the slumbering 
city. 

These trees, beneath whose leaves we stand, speak of the ages that are gone, so 
massive in their trunks, so wide-spreading in their branches, so luxuriant in their 
foliage. The moonlight trembles through tlie quivering leaves and reveals the rich 
garniture of the soil. It blooms with tropical fruits and liowors. Around the giant 
columns of Walnut the jessamine and the wild rose, the lily and the orange blossom, 
spread their tnpestry of rainbow dyes. The air is drowsy with excess of perfume. 
And from the shadows flash the mountain streams, singing the midnight anthem ere 
they plunge below. 

It is the Grove of the Walnut Springs in which we stand ; a grand Cathedral of 
Nature whose pillars are W.ilnut trtes five hundred years old, whose canopy is 
■woven leaves and vines, whose baptismal font is the pure mountain spring, wiiose 
incense is perfume that intoxicates every sense, and whose oft'jrings arc flowers that 
bewilder the gaze with their fresh, their virgin beauty. 



48 MONTKKEY. 

And from the grove by the light of the moon we gaze upon the city, that Amazon 
Queen who reclines so royally among her warrior mountains. 

It is a city of singularly impressive features that reposes yonder. To the north, 
to the south, to the west the mountains rise, girdled with tropical fruits and foliage 
and mantled on their brows with glittering snow. On the east, green with corn-fields 
and beautiful with groves of orange trees, spreads a level plain. 

Those orange groves seem to love the city of the Koyal Mountain. For they girdle 
her dark stone walls with their white blossoms and hang their golden fruit above her 
battlemented roofs. From this elevated grove, toward the south, around the sleeping 
city, winds the beautiful river of San Juan, now hidden among pomegranate trees, 
now sending a silvery branch into the town, again flashing on beside its castled 
walls. 

Below us, with its roofs laid bare to the moonlight, we behold each tower and 
dome of the mountain city. It is a place of narrow streets and one-storied houses, 
with walls and floors of stone. Above each level roof rises a battlement, breast 
high ; the streets are crossed by huge piles of masonry, and the Avhole town presents 
the appearance of an immense fortress, linked together by bands of stone, adorned 
with gardens, and gloomy with towers of rock and steel. 

Far to the west, a huge steep, crowned with a mass of stone, varied with cannon, 
casts its heavy shadow — a long belt of blackness — over the town. That is the 
Bishop's Palace. 

Here, before us, east of the city, their outlines seen above the river and the groves 
of orange blossoms, these castellated mounds rise clearly in the air. Yonder, on the 
north, glooms the massive citadel. Thus girdled by defenses of stone, iron, and steel, 
thus sheltered by its mountains of fruit and snow, the city of the Royal Mountain 
may well seem impregnable. 

Yonder, toward the south, among its homes of stone, you behold an open space ; 
the grand Plaza of Monterey. There rise the cathedral towers, heaving above their 
peaks and domes of stone the golden cross into the midnight sky. Look ! How it 
glitters above the town, smiling back to heaven the beams of the rising moon. 

It is impregnable, this mountain city. No arms can take it ; no cannon blast its 
impenetrable walls. The Bishop's Palace on one side, the three forts on the other, 
the citadel on the north, the river on the east and south ; it is shut in by stone, by 
iron, by water, and by flame. 

And yet, not many months ago — sit by me, while the moon shines over the city, 
and I will tell you the story — there came to this grove an old man mounted on a 
gray charger and clad in a plain brown coat. On the mountains that frown toward 
the east, through the ravines that darken there, he came followed by six thousand 
men. He encamped in this grove of walnut trees, and the arms of his soldiers shone 
gayly from the white waste of orange blossoms. He stood where now we stand, he 
gazed first upon his men, his horses, his cannon, and then upon the city, which 
though it smiles to us in the light of the morn, gloomed in his face by the beams of 
day — from every roof, and rock, and tower, with one deadly frown. 

The old man saw it crowded by nine thousand armed men. He saw every roof 
transformed into a castle, formidable with its death-array of cannon and steel, the 
Cathedral, with its cross and image of Jesus, converted into a magazine of gunpowder 
— a silent volcano, that only wanted the impulse of a single spark to make it blaze 
Rnd tliunder. 



JIONTEKEY. 4.9 

And yet the old npan nfter his silent gnzc turned to his brother heroes, nmong 
vhom Butler and Twiggs, and Worth of the Waving Plume, stood prominent, and 
said in liis quiet way : 

" The town is before us. We will take it." 

Then every soldier in that army of six thousand men took his comrade by the hand 
and said : " Jf I fall, swear that you will bury my corpse.'" 

For every heart felt that the conrcst must be horrible iind deadly. 

The heroes of the prairie, the Men of Palo Alto and Kcsaca de la Palma, were 
there. Mingled with these iron soldiers you might see the Men of Mississippi and 
Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee, and Oliio, Kentucky, and Texas. The farms and 
the workshops of the American Union had heard the cry which shrieked from the 
twin battle-fields of Palo Alto and Rosxca de la Palma — heard it, and sent forth 
their beardless boys, their gray-haired men, to the rescue. The sugar and cotton 
plantations of the South, the prairies of the North, the mountains of Pennsylvania, 
the blue hills of Kentucky, that dark and bloody ground, the massacre fields of 
Texas, all sent their men to swell the ranks of the New Crusade. The same Banner 
that waved over Bunker Hill, and Saratoga and Brandy wine, from the Walnut 
Grove, flashed the light of its stars over I\Ionterey. 

The fight began on the twenty-first of September, 1847, and tracked its bloodj 
course over the twenty-second, and did not cease its howl of murder when the sun 
went down on the twenty-third. 

You maybe sure that it was horrible, this battle of street and square, of roof 
and cliff, of mountain and gorge. It was a storm— hurled from the mouths of 
muskets, cannon, and mortar, wrapping cliff and dome in its dark pall, and flushing 
its lightning in tlie face of Sun, Moon and Stars for three days. You may be sure 
that the orange groves, mowed down by the cannon's blaze, showered tlieir white 
blossoms over tlic faces of the dead. That the San Juan, sparkling in the moon, like 
silver now, then blushed crimson, as if in shame for the horrible work that was 
going on. That nothing but shots, groans, shouts, yells, the sharp crack of the rifle, 
the deep boom of the cannon, was heard throughout those three days of blood. 
That in the battle trenches lay the dead men, American and Mexican, their silent 
groups swelled every moment by new corpses, looking with glassy eyes into each 
other's faces. That many a beautiful woman, nestling in her darkened liome, was 
crushed in her white bosom by the cannon ball, or splintered in the forehead, just 
above the dark eyes, by the musket shot. 

And amid the fight, whether it blazed in volumes of flame or rolled in waves of 
emoke, you may be sure two objects were distinctly seen — the white plume of the 
chivalrous Worth and tlie familiar brown coat of stout Zachary Taylor. 

It was on the morning of the twenty-first, when the rising sun shone over the 
groves of orange and pomegranate, the fields of corn, and the girdle of rocks and 
waves, encircling tlie mouniain city, that suddenly a mass of white smoke heaved 
upward from the ravines, yawning iibout the Bishop's Palace, and rolling cloud on 
cloud wrapt tliosc towers in its folds and stretched like an immense shroud along 
the western sky. 

Beneath the smoke AVortli and his men were commencing the Battle of Monterey 
on the west of the town. 

At the same moment, around these forts on the east, a cloud of smoke arose — it 
swept away toward the citadel and soon melted into the cloud on the west. 

4 

I 



50 ' MONTEREY. 

Under its pall Taylor and his men were advancing upon the town from the north 
and cast. Thus the city of the Royal Mountain was girdled by a pall of battle- 
Bmoke. and thus, from opposite sides of the town, Taylor and Worth fought their 
ways of blood toward each other, driving nine thousand Mexicans, with Ampudia at 
their head, into a center of death and flame. 

Night came and went and came again, and still the fight went on. One by one 
the tliree batteries on the east fell before the arms of Taylor. Over the impregnable 
heights of the Bishop's Palace wave the Banner of the Stars. The city saw not a 
glimpse of blue sky, for in the air hung a canopy of battle-cloud, and over the roofs 
the gunpowder spread its pestilential mist. There was neither food nor shelter any- 
where. God pity the women then, who, shuddering in cellars and burrowing in 
dark rooms, clutched to their breasts the children of their love ! In the Cathedral no 
prayer was spoken, no mass sung the deep anthem, or waved from censers the snowy 
incense. The Image of Jesus was wrapt in the battle-cloud; that divine face for 
once seemed to frown. Mild Mother Mary, above the altar, was clad in a robe of 
smoke, and her sad and tender face grew livid, ghastly with gleams of battle-flame. 

There was no rest for the sole of human foot, no slumber but the slumber of the 
bloody ditch or dark ravine. None slept but the dead. 

And still, from the west, the cannon of Worth hurled their message to Taylor on 
the east, and ever more the cannon of Taylor thundered their reply. Nearer grew 
those sounds to each other, and closer in the fiery circle Ampudia and his IMexicaas 
were hemmed. Over the roofs, through the battered houses, beyond their battered 
barricades, they wore driven by Worth and Taylor, until the battle gathered to one 
point, and above the main plaza where the moon shines so calmly now, on Cathedral 
and Cross, hung the accumulated cloud of three days' agony. 

And to this grove of the Walnut Springs, where at this hour the moon breaks in 
tender light on each massive tree and perfumed flower, the battle-mangled were 
brought to bleed and die. Tlie sod, spreading so thick with blossoms all around us, 
grew purple with a bath of blood. Hearts that had once quivered to the pressure 
of woman's bosom, were frozen in this grove, and eyes that had looked tenderly into 
the eyes of wife, mother, child, grew glassy beneath the walnut leaves. 

But amid all the horror of the fight, the Mountains yonder — like calm Demons, 
impenetrable to the yell of the slaughter or the howl of agony — lifted their snowy 
tops, and shone on, whether lighted by the sun, or moon, or stars, or battle-flash. 

Crouching in a darkened chamber, two Mexican girls flung their arms about each 
other's necks and buried their faces in their flowing hair. Through the small window 
toward the west, half-covered with vines, a few wandering gleams of sunlight shone. 
Ever and again a red flash bathed the room in crimson light. It was a spacious room, 
with stone walls hidden in purple hangings, and a marble floor strewn with the 
wrecks of books, and harps, and flowers. 

In one corner stood a small couch, its ruflled pillows yet bearing the outlines of 
those two virgin forms. 

From that couch they had darted suddenly, and with their half-naked forms quiv- 
ering with affright flung themselves on the marble floor near the window, where a 
Cross glittered in its shadowy recess. 

And now, as their white shoulders and uncovered feet glowed in the feeble light, 
their faces were hidden on each other's breasts among their luxuriant hair. 

You may see their limbs quiver, you may see the scanty robe which but half-con- 



irONTEEEY. 51 

ceals each virgin form move tremulously with each movement of their bodies, but their 
faces you can not see. 

It is now near sunset, on this fatal twenty-third of September, 1846. For three days 
these girls have awaited the return of their father from the battle. Three days ago 
they saw him go forth on his gray war-horse, an old but muscular man, whose olive 
checks, seamed with wrinkles, and dark hair mingled with the snowy flakes of age, 
were shadowed by plumes of fiery crimson. They saw him, in his costume of national 
green, dash from the door of their home toward the battle. By his side their brother 
rode, a manly boy of nineteen, who.se jet-black hair gathered in thick curls around 
his young forehead, while his sinewy arm waved his sword in the morning air. 

So gallantly from their garden-encircled home of Monterey they went forth to- 
gether, the father and son, their uniforms flashing back the light from every star of gold, 
while the necks of their steeds proudly arched, their plumes fluttering in the breeze, 
their figures quivering with the impulse of the fight — all gave omen of a bloody battle 
and a certain triumph. 

For three days the maidens had waited for them, but they came not. For three 
days and nights the roar of the fight swelling afar had startled slumber from their 
eyes. But now that roar grew nedrcr ; it deepened into thunder ; it spoke more 
plainly. Quivering in every nerve as they knelt on the floor, they could distinctly 
hear the separate voices of the battle — now the rifle's shriek, now the musket's peal, 
now the cannon's thunder shout. 

And the storm grew nearer their hou.sc ; it seemed to rage all around them, for those 
terrible sounds never for one moment ceased, and the red flash poured through the 
narrow window in one incessant sheet of battle-lightEing. 

Still the Father, the Brother, came not ! 

Hark ! that crash which shakes the chamber like an earthquake ! The girls lift 
their faces from amoug their flowing hair, and you may read the volume of their con- 
trasted loveliness. 

This, with her warm, voluptuous lx>.som, and the rich brown cheek shadowed by the 
ra^'en hair — Ximena. The other, with the fair cheek, and snowy breast, and large 
eyes that remind you of the deep azure of a starry midnight, the hair that floats in 
curls of chestnut-brown — Teresa. 

Their beautiful tresses twining together in mingled dyes of light and shade, the 
full, luxuriant form of Ximena contrasted with the more delicate figure of Teresa, 
those dark eyes swimming in tears, the maidens half-starting from their knees, pre- 
Bcnted a picture of touching loveliness. 

Around them strewn their torn books, broken harps, and withered flowers : before 
them, smiling from its dark recess, that solitary cross. 

Again that crash, again that red light streaming through the window ! With one 
bound the girls sprang to their feet, and ga^ed upon the door whose panels you may 
distinguish yonder among the purple curtaining. 

'• They come !" shrieked Ximena, and gathered her sister to her heart. 

Deep shouts were hcai"d, the tramp of armed men resounding through a narrow 
passage — another crash ! The door gave way, and the red battle-light rushed into 
the place. The door gave way, and as it clanged upon the floor a dying man fell 
backward upon its panels, the broken sword firmly clenched in hi.s hand, the blood 
pouring in a stream from the wound in his chest. 

His throat bare, his dark hair, sprinkled with silver, hanging damp and clotted 



52 MONTEREY. 

above his -wrinkled brow, he glared upward with his glazing eyea, made an eflbrt to 
rise, and fell back writhing in his death-agony. 

Above him, the foremost of a band, attired in blue, stood a slender but athletic 
form, his upraised arm still waving its sword, red with the blood of the pros- 
trate enemy. His face was very pale, but his hazel eye shone with the mad light of 
carnage. 

At a glance the girls behold the form of that dying man, the figure of Murderer— 
and a shriek that made his blood grow chill, though it raged with the battle fever, 
filled the place. 

The American in the doorway felt his nerveless arm drop by his side. Even as the 
Bword dripped its red tears upon the floor, he beheld those girls kneeling beside the 
dying man, and heard one word quiver from their lips — 

" Father !" 

It was in the Spanish tongue, but he read its meaning in their extended arms, in 
their faces stamped with agony, in their bared bosoms wildly pressed against the 
bleeding chest of his foe. 

They looked up into his face ; they raised their eyes to this young, pale brow, and 
spoke once more : 

" Our Father !" 

The young American felt his fingers stiffen, heard his bloody sword clatter on the 
floor. 

" His pistol it was that shot my comrade by my side, even as we came charging up 
the Plaza, his — " 

He shrieked these words, driven to madness by their accusing looks, but he could 
gay no more. For he, too, had a gray-haired father— he, too, among the hills of 
Pennsylvania, in the old farm-house at the end of the lane, where mill-streams wind 
among the woods, had two sisters ! That father blessed him when he left home for 
the wars, those sisters pressed their warm kisses on his lips as they gasped farewell ! 

Now, upon the threshold of the Mexican home he stood, the dying father writhing 
before his eyes, while his daughters, with their bared bosoms, sought to stanch the 
flowing of the blood which hissed warm and smoking from his heart. There he stood, 
the Murderer in presence of his victim, with the eyes of those beautiful sisters upon 
his face ! 

The sight was too much for him. 

Waving his comrades back— they were all young men like him, unused to scenes of 
blood, their veins fired for the first time with the lust of carnage— he flung himself 
upon the floor, and with his hands pressed over the wound madly endeavored to stop 
the blood that glided through his fingers and dashed into his face. 

But the dying old Mexican, with distorted features and glazing eyes, muttered a 
curse with his livid lips, and feebly endeavored to withdraw himself from the touch 
of the American. 

Those half-clad maidens, with frenzy in their eyes, tore the'.r glossy hair and beat 
their breasts with their clenched hands, as they felt that there was no longer a hope 
for the old man, their father. 

The American, on his knees beside them, saw the unspeakable agony written on 
each face, and knew himself a guilty and blood-stained man. 

" He shot my comrade," the words came faintly from his lips — " my blood was up — 
I pursued him — we fought- fought on over heaps of dead to the door— and ^-but I 



MONTEREY. 53 

did not tliink of this ! To stab an old man on the threshold of his home, in the pres- 
ence of his children !" 

Again he sank beside the dying man ; but those lips, now changed to a clayish blue, 
only moved to curse again. With' extended arms he fell before the maidens, but their 
looks of horror, as they shrank from him with outspread arms, gave no hope of for- 
giveness. 

At last he rose, and standing among the curtains near the doorway, where the shad- 
ows were thickest, folded his arms and contemplated the scene. 

Here Ximena, chafing with her warm palms the chilled hands of her father, her 
hair streaming wildly over her shoulders, stained with the warm blood of his heart; 
there, Teresa, with the head of the dying man on her lap, her fingers pressed upon his 
clammy brow, her blue eyes weeping their tears like rain on his glassy eyeballs. 

" It cuts my heart like a dagger" — the American forced the words between his set 
teeth — " I have a father, too, away in Pennsylvania, and sisters, too, that resemble 
these girls." 

He could bear it no longer. Scarce knowing what he did, only wishing to turn his 
eyes away from that sight, he plunged among the hangings, and found himself at the 
foot of a narrow stairway. A moment had not passed, when he emerged upon the flat 
roof with its battlement of stone. His cheek was pale as death — before the battle he 
had suffered much with fever — and the emotions fast crowding round his heart gave 
an unnatural gleam to his eye. 

He approached the battlement and started away. The scene beneath was at once 
horrible and sublime. The roof commanded a free view of the Plaza of the city and 
all the avenues leading to it. Again he approached and gazed upon the Last Fight 
of Monterey. 

Imagine a space two hundred yards square, walled in by houses one story high, 
frowning with battlements. This space is packed with one dense mass of infuriated 
soldiers, half naked, their faces scarce distinguishable beneath the stain of powder 
and blood. They shout, they yell ; they roll to and fro like the waves of a whirlpool. 
Here you may distinguish the American, there the Mexican, uniform. 

From every battlement, lined with frenzied Mexicans, pours the blaze of mus- 
ketry, hurling the death alike on friend and foe. Beneath, bayonet to bayonet, 
and knife to knife, over the pavement, slippery with blood, the contest is maintained. 

As the ranks of the battling legions move aside or part for a moment, you may be- 
hold the cold faces of the dead ; amid their fiercest roar you hear the deep piercing 
yell of the wounded. 

Over this scene glooms the Cathedral, its towers only half seen amid the clouds of 
emoke which toss around them. 

That cross glitters in the setting sun, but all below is dim, dark, and bloody. Just 
as you have seen a mist hover above a summit, so that thick cloud glooms over the 
grand Plaza of Monterey, its edges tinted with sunset gold while all beside is dark. 

And toward this Plaza, like separate streams of blood rushing from north and 
gouth and cast and west toward one great lake of carnage, the three days' battle 
rolls by every street and avenue, along these roofs, and through yonder smoking 
ruins. 

Yonder to the west, far over the heads of advancing Americans, cast your gaze ; 
among the whirling combatants you see the White Plume waving in the battle light. 
Worth is there. Like a cavalier of old he rides to battle, his graceful and command- 



54 MONTEREY. 

ing figure clad in full uniform, Lis head placed proudly on his shoulders, his broad 
chest thrown forward as if in defiance of the danger and the death around him. 

To the east turn your eye. Down this avenue, where the cannons blaze their fire 
into the faces of the recoiling Mexicans, where the clouds now come down like night, 
and now roll away, leaving the scene to the warm glow of the setting sun, down this 
lane of blood, amid the charging squadrons, you behold a warrior on a gray horse, 
with a brown coat thrown back from his broad chest, while a plain cap surmounts 
his bronzed face and flashing eyes. Taylor is there. 

They hear each others' shouts, the Men of Worth and Taylor, charging from east 
and west toward the Grand Plaza, their cannon-balls encounter each other in the 
ranks of the foe, crushing men and horses, firm masonry, and battlemented walls be- 
fore them ; they fight on toward the center, where gleams the Cathedral cross over 
masses of cloud ! 

This was the scene which the young American, sick of the battle, and thinking of 
his dear Pennsylvanian home, beheld ; but it was not all. No — no. 

Between the rolling clouds the sky smiled so calmly down upon him : beneath, in the 
bloody Plaza, the dead looked so ghastly up in his face ! Not twenty yards from the 
place where he stood a dead woman lay, her mangled breasts clotted with blood, while 
her frozen features, knit so darkly in the brow and distorted along the lips, told how 
fierce the struggle in which she died. 

0, it would have made your blood dance to stand there and see how, wave on wave, 
the Americans rolled their flood of bayonets toward the Plaza; how, flash on flash, 
their cannon lighted up the battle, whirling around the Cathedral ; how, yell on yell, 
the stern hunters of the West, with clenched bowie-knives in their brawny arms, came 
rushing on to the last act of the three days' drama of blood ! 

At last, as if the daylight was sick of the scene, the night fell — a starless, moonlesa 
night — and in the darkness the fight went horribly forward. 

Then, through the pall that hung above the Cathedral, a mass of fire came blazing 
on like the bloody moon in the Book of Picvelations, blazing on with its fiery mane 
flung far along the sky. 

It comes from the mortar of Worth, and hisses down among the Mexicaias in front 
of the Cathedral. Old Zachary, gazing from the east, sees that bomb as it flashes on 
its meteor way, and knows that the end of the battle is near. 

Weary of the darkness and the blood, the young American tottered from the bat- 
tlement and down the stairway into the chamber where he had left the sisters and 
their dying father. 

A darkness, so dense that it seemed to press upon the eyeballs, lay upon the 
place. 

The American soldier stood among the purple curtains listening in awe for the 
faintest sound. 

It was still — terribly still. To the excited fancy of the battle-worn Volunteer it 
seemed a death-vault gloomy with the darkness of ages. The very atmosphere 
seemed thick with death. 

lie advanced — a single step— and then, even as he could distinctly hear the beat- 
ings of his heart, he spread forth his arms, sank on his knees, and felt his way through 
that darkened chamber. 

His extended hands touched the cold face of the dead. There was something so 
loathsome in that clammy pressure which left his fi,ngers wet with clotted blood, tkat 



MONTEEET. 55 

he started back, and remained for a moment motionless as the dead, as if rooted to 
the stone on which he knelt. 

Then, dashing forward with trembling hands, he felt the cold face again, and 
another and yet one more clammy brow. He was alone in that room with the dead. 
Three corses lay on the stone floor beside the kneeling man. 

This was the work of War! War on the battle-field, where the yell of the dying 
rings its defiance to the charging legions, wears on its bloodiest plume some gleam of 
chivalry ; but War in the home, scattering its corses beside the holiest altars of life» 
and mingling the household gods with bleeding hearts and shattered skulls, this, in- 
deed, is a fearful thing. 

As the American sunk back shuddering and cold — for he, too, had a father ; he^ 
too, had sisters — a glare like lightning illumined the chamber, laying bare every nook 
and crevice, and tinting every object with its red and murderous light. In a moment; 
it died away, but that moment of sudden light revealed this battle-picture to the eyes 
of the American soldier : 

The Father dead upon the prostrate door, liis distorted features scowling curses 
even as he lay with his hands clenched over his mangled breast. By his side, two 
forms, their arms about each others neclis, their lips close together, their young faces, 
even in that battle-light, wearing a smile serene as a cloudless heaven — it was the 
Brother and his Sister sleeping their last sleep. One bullet had pierced their skulls 
through the temples. She, with her glassy blue eyes and brown hair, lay with her 
cheek to his, as the brother's lip, darkened by a slight mustache, was curved in a, 
joyous smile. 

So, by their dead father the dead children lay, crushed into eternal silence, even a« 
they had embraced each other over his lifeless body. 

It was e\'ident that the young Mexican came home from the fight without a wound,; 
and died in the act of consoling his fatherless sisters. 
But Ximena — where is she ! 

Look, beside the bodies of the dead, and tremble as you behold that kneeling woman 
gazing fixedly upon the three corpses, her eyes dilating until the white circle is seen 
distinctly around each burning pupil, while her death-like face and uncovered bosom 
are darkly relieved by the volume of her luxuriant hair. 
Was she dead ? 

A convulsive quivering of the lip alone bore witness to the miserable life that still 
dwelt in her maddened brain ; a slight, almost imperceptible heaving of her white 
bosom told that her torn heart still throbbed on. 

For a moment the American saw this picture — only one of the thousand horrible 
sights Avhich the light of battle revealed in the homes of Monterey — and the darkness 
fell like a pall upon the living and the dead. 

Through with Mexico, Lippard began to yearn again for his old battle- 
fields. He wrote " Paul Ardenheim, the Monk of Wissahikon," a cu- 
rious book, partaking of the styles of •' Ladye Annabel" and " Washington 
and his Generals." It came out in two volumes, in 1848. In the char- 
acter of Paul Ardenheim the author seems to have drawn from his own 
personal experience. The work is of itself attractive, but with this hint 
to accompany the reader, its interest is exceedingly heightened. 



56 PAUL AKDENHEIM IN A EEVEET. 

This is very much like Lippard. Paul Ardenheim is standing in a 
revery upon a bold rock by the Wissahikon. 

Meanwhile, upon the summit of the rock, stood the motionless form, clad in a somber 
robe reaching to his knees, the face turned from the moon, and the long flowing black 
hair surmounted by a velvet cap. 

His hands were clasped, and the silver cross gleamed faintly on his dark dress. It 
was a noble form; and the face, wrapt in half-shadow, was softened by an emotion 
which parted the lips and gave the large eyes a light at once sad and tender. 

Alone upon the rock — the wild woods around ; the intense sky above — he stood, 
while his dark form rose boldly into light from the snow-covered earth. 

He raised his gaze to the sky ; it was there, so deep, so bright, so beautiful, like a 
great curtain hung between his eyes and that awful world of eternity, crowded with 
spirits of Light and Darkness. 

The air was breathlessly still. The long prolonged howl of the watch-dog came 
from afar with an unearthly cadence ; the waves of the Wissahikon filled the hollows 
in the rocks with faint murmurs. 

Save these sounds, all was still. 

The eyes which gleamed from that bronzed face grew brighter and more lustrous 
even as they were wet with tears. 

For the soul of the young man was elevated and purified by the supernatural so- 
lemnity of the winter night upon the AVissahikon. To him, the great sky was no 
vague blank in the universe. It was crowded with the Spirit People of many tongues, 
tribes, and forms. The Stars above were the Homes of Souls, many good, many evil, 
some lost in crimes, and some pure as the light of God. 

And even through the blue sky he could look up and see these spirits, or, to speak 
in language which may be more intelligible, these Men and AVomen of a purer and 
diviner creation circling in myriad throngs of light and darkness; some with their 
faces glowing ineffable love, and others wearing upon their foreheads the fiery scorn 
of passion, defiance, and despair. 

For from very childhood he had been taught to believe that, even as the chain of 
physical existence begins with rudest beasts and almost imperceptible reptiles and ex- 
tends upward to man, so from man up to God the chain of Spiritual Life extended in 
one unbroken line, creation crowding on creation, and tribes of spirits rising above 
Other tribes, until the universe beheld its supreme source and fountain in the Great 
Father of Eternity. 

Therefore to him the beautiful sky did not seem a vague blank in creation, peopled 
only with stars that were desert worlds. 

Nor did the rivulet, tossing among its ice-covered rocks, nor the leafless trees around 
it, rising bleakly from the snowy earth, nor the deep glens sunken here and there on 
the borders of the gorge of Wissahikon, wear only their external forms of wildness 
and beauty. 

They were peopled with absorbing associations ; not a rock but had its own interest ; 
not a tree but waved in the moonlight, stirred by some hand to him invisible. The 
very air was thronged— dense — with the Spirit People. 

Ere you smile at the young man and scorn his spiritual belief, let me impress a few 
facts distinctly on your minds. 

He has never passed the space of an hour's journey from the gorge, cf Wissaliikon. 



LIPPARD A STUMP SPKAKKK. A DKA2IATIST. 57 

His mind lias bsen shaped in solitude ; in an ancient mansion, centered among 
these wools, he has lived since that hour of childhood which has but a faint mist in 
place of Memory. 

Lippard had become such an admirer of General. Taylor while writing 
his " Legends of Mexico," that when the Presidential Campaign of 1848 
Bet in, he determined to assert the claims of the old warrior from the 
stump. He traveled through the greater part of Pennsylvania, stirring 
up the minds of the people. He had no taste for politics as a trade — he 
visited professional " patriots" with immeasurable scorn and contempt. 
He was never born to rule in these " latter day" venal times. In his 
political pilgrimage he kept aloof from the puzzling discussion of "tweedle- 
dum and tweedle-dee." He did not meddle with the "great questions of 
the campaign," which he humbly conceived to be only those involved in 
the division of the flesh pots. He recited legends. He talked of Taylor's 
bravery, magnanimity, purity, integrity, ingenuousness in things political. 
All these he believed. He spoke as if he were speaking gospel. He 
did much — as much as any other man — to carry Pennsylvania for Taylor. 
This is history. 

During the same busy year he found leisure to start a weekly paper — 
" The Quaker City." It was devoted to legends, stories, and the further- 
ance of his peculiar social ideas. The paper ran up to a large and 
wide-spread circulation, and lived about a year and a half, when it failed, 
not from lack of support, but from some internal difficulties — perhaps 
dissensions. 

In the first number of " The Quaker City" appeared the opening 
chapters of the " Memoirs of a Preacher." It is a powerful satire upon 
the modern apostles of your mere creeds and dogmas. Upon its conclu- 
sion in the paper the story was issued in book form, and met with an 
extensive sale. 

In the year 1849, Lippard made his first appearance as a dramatist. 
He wrote a piece, designed to illustrate the evils of intemperance, which 
was produced with a capital cast at Peale's Museum, Philadelphia. The 
leading characters were sustained by Mrs. Russell (now Mrs. Hoey, of 
Wallack's Theater), Miss Gannon, Mr. Gallagher, an actor of much merit, 
now deceased, and Mr. Johnston (late of Burton's). The latter made a 
hit in the rule of a fop upon whom the author had lavished much of his 
best humor. The drama had a good long run to crowded houses. It was 
also brought out in a popular theater of this city. 

This is the first, last, and only play we know of from the pen of Lippard. 
Its hin-h success induces us to believe that he might have gathered laurels 



58 INFANCY OF THE BEOTHEKHOOD. 

in the field of the drama, had he followed it. He had an excellent idea 
of "telling points," tableaux, and picturesque dramatic effects. 

The idea of a " Brotherhood of the Union," was an early one with 
Lippard. He grew up with it. It was one of the cherished dreams of 
his youth. He nurtured it with the affection bestowed upon a pet child. 
It was the offspring of patriotism and poetic zeal. He never expected 
to barter it away for money ; and, while his ambition was more or less 
linked with its success, we believe he was moved mainly by a desire to 
benefit his fellow-man. Carried hither and thither, never forgotten in 
the tide of literary success, fondly clung to in all his domestic misfor- 
tunes and reverses, rounded into shape as he walked the streets, or gazed 
upon the glories of the Wissahikon, the subject of his reveries, the dream 
of his nights — the order first took a living and active shape in 1849. 
The secret was disclosed to a few personal friends. It met with favor. 
A circle was formed in Philadelphia^ and without much pushing the 
Brotherhood gradually began to attract attention. 

The objects of the order were thus briefly and plainly stated by Lippard, 
in some remarks preliminary to the printed Constitution for the Circles. 

H. F. 

In order to afford sincere inquirers some knowledge of the character of our Order, 
in order also to refute and set at rest erroneous ideas which have been put in 
circulation in regard to its object and its work, the Supreme Circle of the Brother- 
hood, through the undersigned, publish this statement of the true purpose of the 
Order. 

The Brotherhood of the Union continues to spread throughout the United States. 
From every part of the Union it is hailed by the friends of Progress as an efficient 
worker in the cause of humanity. Taking for its basis the principle of Brotherly 
Love embodied in the Gospel of Nazareth, and the affirmation of the Right of every 
Man to life, liberty, land, and home, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, 
the Brotherhood of the Union now comes before the world, not as an organiza- 
tion of dreams and shadows, but as a Worker — a practical every-day Worker — in the 
cause of Labor. 

In the course of less than one year of active life the Brotherhood planted its 
White Banner in twenty States of the American Union. And for the future, 
properly directed and thoroughly understood by the true kind of men, it will aoon 
increase its Circles, and spread its influence until it numbers at least one thousand 
Circles. But it seeks not so much to increase its numbers, as to attract to its work, 
the men who are willing to receive its truths and ready to act upon them. 

Once for all, the Brotherhood has nothing to do with sectional questions, or with 
the party politics of the day. 

It does not seek to array labor against capital. 

It does seek to render the operations of labor and capital harmonious, and to 
protect labor against usurped capital. 



PRINCIPLES OF THE BKOTHEKHOOD. 59 

It Joes not seek to array one class against another, nor one creed against anotlier. 

It does seek to unite all true men, of every class and creed, upon the broad plat- 
form of "Brotherhood." 

And in its ritual the word " Brotherhood'' does not mean alms, charity, or 
friendship, but has a meaning infinitely more vast and significant — a meaning which 
will st)'ike home into the heart of every sincere man. 

" Brotherhood" properly followed out, will give to every man the fruits of his 
labor — will secure to every worker a homestead — will protect the men who work against 
those vsurpers of capital who degrade labor in factories and swindle it in Banks — 
will by means of peaceful combination so reform public opinion that legislators will 
no longer dare to make special laws, and bestow privileges upon one man at the 
expense of ninety-nine of his brothers and sisters. 

" The Brotherhood of the Union" works by combination of true hearts — and 
that combination is aided by means of rites, ceremonies, and symbols which, in some 
form or other, have been celebrated by the friends of humanity for untold years. 
Yet the Brotherhood does not boast of this antiquity of its rites for mere antiquity's 
sake — nor for the purpose of exacting a superstitious veneration — but in order to 
bhow that the Principles for whose fulfillment we are now struggling have had their 
believers in every age, and that the smile of God has blessed them in the darkest 
epochs of human despair. These rites trace the history of labor through every age, 
and point to the future, when the " acceptable year of the Lord" shall come to the 
Sons of men, blessing every man with a. place to Work with the fruits of his Work 
(not wages nor alms), and with a bit of Land that he may call by the sacred title of 
Home. 

" The Brotherhood" is eminently patriotic. It is American. It is the only actually 
American Order in the world. 

But it is not patriotic in a party sense, nor American according to a narrow creed. 
It is American because it is imbued with the great idea of America — to wit — that 
the New World was given by God to the Workers of the World as their especial 
domain — their own free Homestead — sacred forever from the craft, of the Priest or 
the power of the King. 

Thus the New AVorld bears the same relation to the Workers of the World that 
Palestine bore to the Israelites enslaved in Egypt. The Continent of America is 
the Palestine of Redeemed Labor. 

It is American because its ceremonies keep alive in the heart of every Brother 
the memory of those deeds in the History of the New World which have an especial 
bearing upon the cause of Liberty and Progress. It is American because the very 
titles of its officers are nothing less than the Names of the great men of the American 
Past. 

It is American because it seeks to inculcate (in a manner of which the world with- 
out can have no idea) a feeling of Brotherhood among the citizens of Thirty American 
States. It is American because it regards the New World as the agent chosen by 
Almight}' God for the regeneration of the Oppressed of all nations and races. 

The Regalia which clothes the Brothers of the Order costs but little — not one 
tenth as much as the Regalia of the other Orders — and is more beautiful than the 
Regalia of any Order now in existence. This Regalia gives unity of appearance to 
the Armies of Organized Labor embodied in the Brotherhood. It is the Regalia of 
patriotism, of progress, and of labor. It is not intended to create distinction, but 



60 PRINCIPLES OF THE BROTHERHOOD. 

to level all distinctions. Kings and Priests have had their Regalia long enough — 
their robes of purple and their gowns of velvet and lawn — and now Labor claima 
its own royal robes, and wears them with honor in the Brotherhood of the 
Union. 

Be it understood that the investment of considerable sums of money in costly and 
therefore useless Regalia is particularly opposed by the spirit and lessons of 
Brotherhood. 

While the Brotherhood of the Union sympathizes with the various excellent Orders 
of the day — the Masons, the Odd Fellows, Sons of Temperance, and others — while 
it numbers many of their members in its fold — it is superior to them all, and beyond 
them all, because it strikes at the root of those Evils which have so long degraded 
or oppressed the human race. This fact has been warmly acknowledged by eminent 
members of the Orders named above. 

With regard to the Method of forming new Circles of the Order— 

The Undersigned is for the present delegated and authorized to answer all letters 
which may be addressed to him on this subject. Any Ten Men who believe in God 
— who vow to maintain the American Union — and to defend the Rights of Labor — 
can obtain a Charter for a Circle of the Brotherhood. It matters not from what 
part of the United States or from what quarter of the American Continent the 
Petitioners may hail. We will send Forms of Application to all persons who may 
in good faith apply for them. 

Let me briefly state the 

PLATFORM OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE UNION. 

I. — Its Motto. — Truth, Hope, and Love." — It believes in the Truth that God has 
given the American Continent as the Homestead of redeemed Labor — it holds fast 
to the Hope that the day comes when Labor shall be free from the death-grip of the 
Monopolist and the Tyrant — it cherishes that Love which is but another name for 
Universal Brotherhood. 

II. — Its Title. — " Brotherhood of the Union." — The Union of the good against the 
bad — the Union of the friends against the enemies of mankind — -the Union of the 
Workers against the Idlers who do not work, but who do steal the fruits of Labor's 
toil — the Union of Labor until Labor ripens into Capital. 

III. — Its Method of Work. — The Combination of all true men into Circles of 
Brotherhood, scattered throughout the Continent, and held together by a common 
purpose, and by uniform regalia, rites, ceremonies, and symbols. 

IV. — To the great object of the Order, regalia, rites, ceremonies, and symbols are 
held subservient. When the Order can work without them they will be dispensed 
■with. 

V. — Its great Symbol — a Circle, the emblem of God, of Eternity, and of Universal 
Brotherhood. 

On behalf of the Supreme Circle, 

GEORGE LIPPARD, 

Philadelphia. 

To this we may add that among the requisites for initiation are a belief 
in God, the Father of the Universe ; the possession of a good moral char- 



PKINCIPLES OF THE BROTUEKIIOOD. 61 

acter ; and a solemn word of honor or promise to maintain, at all hazards, 
the existence and sanctity of the American Union and the Rights of 
Labor. Provision is also made for the relief of indigent brothers. 
The gradations of the circles are as follows : Circles, Grand Circles (one 
for each State), and the Supreme Circle — the repository of the highe«t 
jurisdiction. 

The pervading Americanism of the Order is revealed by the beautiful 
and highly appropriate names given to several of the officers of the sub- 
ordinate circles, viz. : Chief Washington, Chief Jefferson, Chief Franklin, 
Chief Wayne, Chief Fulton, Chief Girard. The same terms are applied 
to corresponding officers in the Grand Circle and Supreme Circle, with the 
substitution of " Grand"' for " Cliief" in the former, and " Supreme" in the 
latter. The various rites and symbols in use also bring vividly to mind 
the glorious memories of the Revolution, and as an American otAex alone, 
as the preserver of the hallowed names and fames that are our birthright, 
it deserves perpetuity. But another grand purpose of the Brotherhood 
was not allowed to stand in the background. The rights of Labor, as 
against the use of Capital in the hands of tyrants — the inherent title of 
man to a portion of the public soil — opposition to special legislation and 
monopolies — unrelenting hostility to kingcraft and priestcraft, or the op- 
pression of labor in whatever form — were all enjoined in the most im- 
pressive language, and illustrated by the most vivid and solemn appli- 
ances. Any thing further than this we are not permitted to make public. 
But we may say, in general, that a more life-like, forcible, eloquent means 
of combining patriotism and humanity in a practical form we have never 
met. While the charms of poetry and romance were not neglected in 
the composition of the Ritual, they do not monopolize the attention or 
leave the mind simply pleased. I^ippard did not blow mere intellectual 
soap-bubbles. His mental garden grew something besides posies and 
daffodils. The Brotherhood is a working Order. Its merits are never 
really found out till they are put in practice and made an active, operating 
engine of social reformation. 

The Order (as Lippard states in the brief sketch we have published) 
si)read rapidly and widely over the land. Persons who had grown fa- 
miliar with Lippard's peculiar views through his books knew pretty well j 
what to expect in the new society, and anxiously sent on applications for' 
the establishment of circles. 

It is interesting to contemplate the class of men who were — and are — 
drawn together by this common band of brotherhood. They v/erc from 
all grades of life — mechanics, artists, lawyers, doctors, and clergymen — 



62 LIPPARD S FITNESS FOR HIS OFFICE. 

yes, even clergymen — who recognized in Lippard no Antichrist, but only 
the instrument of making the religion of the Saviour more efi'ectual in 
every-day life. All were thinkers, more or less, and all were certainly 
true, earnest men, who had little to expect in joining an Order then in its 
infancy, and upon whom devolved " the heat and burden of the day." 
The great majority of the members were of course mechanics, laborers — 
not rich men. The doctrines advocated by Lippard especially concerned 
them in pocket, heart, and soul. They were such as they had' dreamed 
over in feverish moments of dissatisfaction, murmurings, and even despair. 
These men rushed to the altar of the Brotherhood as to the Ark of the 
Covenant, and hailed in the flame of the " H. F." the symbol of their 
exaltation and purification. 

Lippard was evidently, of all men, the best fitted for the post of Su- 
preme Washington. He attended to all the duties and observances of 
the Order with a zeal and punctuality not to be surpassed. He was so 
fully fixed with the importance of his mission, and displayed so much 
of the genius requisite for carrying it out, that every body could only look 
on and admire. The feeling with which Lippard was regarded by his 
co-workmen in every degree was one of affection. He was not merely 
esteemed — he was loved enthusiastically. There was something in him 
that fascinated all persons brought into contact with him, no matter how 
difl'erent their habits of life and modes of thought from his. This was 
partly owing to the real humanity of his teachings, and partly to the ease 
and natural grace which he displayed in forming acquaintances and making 
friendships. He treated every body upon terms of perfect equality. He 
was never ashamed to walk in the street with a ragged coat and patches 
on both knees for a traveling companion. He never asserted a superi- 
ority of learning or fame. He was not above acquiring truth from the 
humblest walks of life. He took lessons in lowly huts, or by the dusty 
road-side. The only topics upon which he aspired to teach were those 
to which he had devoted the best part of his life, and of which he had the 
ri"ht to claim to give instruction. He did this, not with a vulgar desire 
to over-ride others in conversation, but because his heart was brimming 
over with his favorite themes, and it did him good to pour out the rising 
flood of eloquence upon all comers ; and it generally did them good to 
hear him. Few persons — and no noble-minded ones — ever complained 
that Lippard gave him no chance to talk, when Brotherhood was the 
topic of his impassioned utterance. 

The first national meeting of the " Brotherhood" assembled in that 
sacred place — the Hall of Independence, Philadelphia, October 7th, 



THE S. W.'s ADDRESS FOE 1850. 63 

1S50. The S. W. delivered the following address, which gives a good 
idea of the condition of the Order at that time : 

BROTHERS OF THE UNION ! 

With a full heart, imbued with an emotion -which I have no wish to conceal, I now 
proceed to address you, and in my two-fold capacity — as S. W. and as a Brother — to 
render to you an account of " my stewardship." 

The First Annual Convocation of the Supreme Circle, composed of the G. E. W.'s 
from various States, who had been called together as the " Representatives of the Past 
and the Future of the Brotherhood," met in the Hall of Independence at the hour of 
six o'clock, on Monday, October 7th, 1850. 

There, in that place, sanctified by memories dear, not to the American heart only, 
but to the heart of universal Humanity, we joined hands, and in pledge of the sacred- 
ness of our objects repeated the vow of Brotherhood on the very spot where our Fath- 
ers, seventy years ago, proclaimed the right of all men to life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness. 

We met — men of all creeds and parties— men from all sections of the Union— and 
agreeing to difier in those things which are not essential, we vowed to maintain the 
Brotherhood of the American People— a Brotherhood based upon justice between man 
and man — based upon the right of every man to a place to work and to the full reward of 
work — based at once upon the Declaration of Independence and the Gospel of Nazareh. 

Brothers ! it was a scene that the Future will remember. Our hearts were full. 
We felt that the work in which we are engaged was serious, sacred. Encompassed 
by the memories of the old Hall, we felt that our work was worthy of the place— that 
it was the same for which the Fifty-Six periled life and honor, and the Martyrs of the 
Revolution poured forth their blood upon the battle-field — we felt some glimpses of 
the Future of our Order when its White Banner shall move in blessing into every nook 
and hamlet of the American Continent. 

Having thus, by opening the First Annual Convocation of the Supreme Circle in the 
HALL OF INDEPENDENCE, linked our Order to the Past and Future of American 
History, we adjourned to the Hall of the Brotherhood (near Independence Hall) and 
confirmed our work by opening in complete and ancient form. 

Tlie Annual Convocation then begun its work. 

The Report of the S. AV., embracing a full account of all his transactions in the 
name of the Order for the past year, in regard to finance, organization, and ritual, 
was presented and referred to Committee of the Whole. The Committee, after a full, 
free, and general discussion, adopted the Report, and the Supreme Circle confirmed it 
by an unanimous vote. 

Measures were then taken in regard to the future, both in regard to the formation 
of Circles and Grand Circles, and in respect to the probable expenditures of the pres- 
ent year. You will find the synopsis of those measures in the Annexed Report of the 
proceedings of the Supreme Circle, which, after the adjournment of the Annual Con- 
vocation at three o'clock a. m. on Tuesday, met at two o'clock r. m. (also on Tuesday l, 
in order to confirm and rivet their work. 

And now. Brothers, let me address you — not in the formal sentences of rlietoric, nor 
with any view to seem eloquent — but frankly, freely, as though I stood face to face 
with you and had you by the hand. 



64 THE S. W.'s ADDKESS FOIl 1850. 

My work in the pasL year was most arduous. Through all changes of time and 
circumstance, through privation, difficulty, and disappointment that would have chilled 
a stouter heart than mine, I was true to the Order— not on account of any merit in 
myself, but because I felt that the work of the Order was holy, and that feeling lifted 
me to the performance of my task. When there was siclcncgs and death in my house- 
hold, when my personal business became a wreck and the labor of years was lost, I 
still remained true to my work in the Order — I lived for that when I had nothing else 
left to live for — I felt that it was my duty at all hazards to com.plete my task by 
bringing the Brotherhood into a First Annual Convocation of the S. C. where the Past 
might be reviewed and preparation be made for the Future. 

That has been done. I thank God that I have lived to see that day. 

The Harmony, the Brotherly Love, the high and generous enthusiasm which char- 
acterized that Convocation, can never be forgotten. 

And I speak of what I have done, not to lay claim to your praise, but to impres"? 
upon you the force of this question, Jf I, a man hedged in by difficulty, have been able 
in one year to place on its feet this great Brotherhood, how much may you. Brothers 
■ — you ivhose numbers include men of the highest energy and intellect — how much 
may you accomplish in the Brotherhood in the next year 1 

I am speaking not to the unfaithful or the indiiFerent — I am speaking to the faith- 
ful, tried, and true — I am speaking as though we stood face by the altar, in open 
Circle, with the vow of Brotherhood in our hearts. I implore you to think of the 
question — to weigh, to act upon it — I implore you in the name of God and by the hopes 
of our common humanity. If there ever was a serious thought on my heart you have 
it here, if there ever was a true word on my pen you have it now. 

Brothers of all the States now lighted by the rays of our * * ! Brothers of Maine, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary- 
land, District of Columbia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, 
Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa! Brothers of the North and South, ol 
the Center, of the East and the West! BROTHERS OF THE UNION !— 

To you, one and all, do I appeal, and from the fullness of an overflowing heart bo- 
seech to go on in the work of the Order — to go on, not as trustless or indiiferent men, 
but as men thoroughly convicted of the truths of the Brotherhood, and thus grounded 
ready to work like men and to ■work as one man. 

Working thus, what GOOD can we not accomplish in one year ! 

Working thus, what a glorious account can we not render to the next Annual Con- 
vocation ! 

And to those of our number — should there be any such— who chill the spirit of our 
Order by indifference, or attempt to mar its progress by a selfish and contentious 
spirit, the Order has alsa a word. If you can not work with us by our ritual and 
laws, then go forth in peace. Do not present perpetually to us the bad example of a 
lukewarm or discontented spirit. In the present crisis, most of all times past or future, 
we want true men. Ten true men, thoroughly organized in a circle, and thoroughly 
convicted of the truths of our Order, are worth ten hundred loosely held together, 
and woi-king in a lukewarm, shiftless way. This is not an Order to attract men by 
the mere promise of a weekly stipend in case of sickness, nor by any other mere selfish 
consideration. It is an Order which seeks to attract true men by the truth of ite 
ideas. It seeks to inculcate that holy selfishness which finds in the welfare of another 
our own best welfare. It seeks to implant in every heart that feeling of Brotherhood — 



THE s. w.'s addrp:ss fok 1850. 65 

of complete unity — of heroic self-denial, "which is above all price, and without which 
the People can never accomplish one durable effort of reform. 

Therefore it is not an Order for the selfish, the idle, or the indififerent, but for 
«' True Men." 

Working like true men, what can we not accomplish in the next year ? I confess 
that the heart within me swells as I look through the Future and see, over the clouds 
of social wrong and sectional dissension, our White Banner move on. Look up to 
the Banner, Brothers. There is no stain upon it. No blot of Treason is there. No 
sectional quarrel blotches its spotless white. But there is written " Brotherhood," 
a word which, interpreted by true hearts, means that when Men will work together 
in the spirit of Holy Fraternity, the true Idea of this Continent will be accomplished, 
in establishing the Right of every Man to the fruits of his Labor and to Land and 
Home. Look up to the Banner, Brothers. It soars in sunlight above the strife of 
creed and party — soars in the clear atmosphere of the Right — and the blessing of God, 
the holiest aspirations of all true men, go with it as it waves. 

The millions of the Future will behold that Banner, and they will say of you, my 
Brothers, if you are true to your work, that your hands were the first to lift the 
White Banner, and that in the face of all manner of diflaculty your hands upheld tho 
banner-staflf while life was in your veins. 

I speak with enthusiasm, but it is not — I know it — that kind of enthusiasm which 
dies in speech. It is the outward expression of that feeling which has upheld me, 
through all difficulty, through the past year, and which is still with me, and will be 
with me, to the end of life. 

Remember our Order is now governed in all its Circles by clearly defined Law. To 
that Law the S. W. (for the past year, by the very nature of the case, invested 
with dictatorial powers) is as much subject as the Brother who only yesterday re- 
ceived the rite of Brotherhood. The Supreme Circle is no absolute nor monarchical 
body. 

It is the Supreme guardian of the laws and principles of the B. G. C and is desirous 
to distribute the major part of its governmental powers among Grand (or State) Cir- 
cles, which will be formed as soon as the wishes of brethren or circumstances demand. 
Much less is the Supreme Circle designed to become a monopoly, or a large property 
holder. From year to year it will require sufficient revenue to meet its reasonable 
expenses ; when the sum in its treasury (after the expenses of any past year and the 
probable expenses of any future year arc cared for) amounts to SI, 000, that sum will 
be forthwith distributed by the voice of the Annual Convocation, and the per centage 
of Circles and Grand Circles will be proportionably reduced. The excess will be dis- 
tributed in procuring " Homes for the Homeless," or in some brotherly enterprise to 
be decided upon, not by one ma?i, but by all the Representatives of the Order met in 
Supreme Circle. 

And now, Brothers, I must bring this communication to a close. I have not spoken 
formally, but freely, and from the depths of my heart. I have spoken as a Brother 
to Brothers, as a Man to Men, as a Laborer to Co-Laborers. May God prosper us as 

we are true to this Work. 

In Brotherhood, 

GEORGE LIPPARD. 

Hall of the S. C. Bkothekdhood op the Union (II. P.) C. A. 
Philadelphia, Oct. 12, 1850, A. C, 1853. 

5 



66 AFFECTION OF LIPPAED's FKIEND3. 

In 1851 (as we learn from a paragraph in " The White Banner") the 
Order stood as follows : 

Since this address was first issued, in October, 1850, the Brotherhood, in spite of 
many disadvantages, and without a paper or journal to aid its progress, has been 
steadily increasing. New Circles have been organized in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. Grand Circles with juris- 
diction over their respective districts, have been formed in Western New York and 
Maryland. Ohio, which in the number and zeal of its Circles is justly entitled to the 
name of the " Banner State," will be organized into a Grand Circle this summer. 
The Brotherhood is now established as a fixed fact in the history of our country. It has 
a work to do, both in the Present and the Future, which in importance to our country 
and mankind yields to no movement of the Past or of the Present. Let it not be for- 
gotten that this Brotherhood can not, on any pretense or by any subterfuge, be forced 
into the Maelstrom of politics. That man is an untrue man and a false Brother who 
even hints at political action in connection with the Brotherhood. Nor can the 
Brotherhood take any part in the sectional questions of the day. The way of progress 
which it has marked out for itself is in every respect peaceful, national, and humani- 
tary. To link in one great Circle the true men of the Continent — to aid the develop- 
ment of the highest idea of our country — to conquer the strife of party and the bitter- 
ness of sect by the peaceful lessons of Brotherhood — such is but a part of the great 
Work and great Hope of our Order. If we are not utterly mistaken, the next Convo- 
cation of the Supreme Circle (to be held in Philadelphia on the first Monday of next 
October) will be rich in glorious fruits. 



The affection in which Lippard was held by his friends was not con- 
fined to words. It was exhibited in many generous, touching ways. 
We have some proofs to offer upon this score, which we take to be con- 
clusive. We mention three cases now in our mind. 

A friend in Cleveland (Noah Castor) offered Lippard a room in his 
house and board free if he would come and live with him. Lippard de- 
clined the generous proposition. 

During our author's sickness, a friend in New York (C. Chauncey 
Burr) wrote to him, requesting him to leave Philadelphia, and come on to 
this city, promising board, lodging, and the best of medical attendance. 
It is probable he would have complied had he been well enough to travel. 

Lippard, when once riding in an omnibus in Philadelphia, was ad- 
dressed by a gentleman whom he had never seen before. The stranger 
(whose name we do not have) introduced himself to Lippard, expressed 
the greatest admiration for him (as he had known him through his 
writings), and instantly offered him the rent of a three-story house and 
pressed him to take it. Of course, our author did not accept the extended 
kindness. 



DEATH OF niS CUILDUIOX AND SISTEK. G7 

We group these three facts here (though out of their chronological 
order) because they exhibit more strongly than any others the warmth of 
the friendship entertained for Lippard by all who knew him personally, 
or (what was about the same thing) through the medium of his books. 
We give other illustrations, to a similar purpose, in the course of this 
history. 



Lippard's marriage wis blessed with two children — bright, beautiful 
little girls. With their angelic faces and an affectionate wife to gladden 
his home, he was indeed happy. From all his weariness and vexation 
he found a sweet repose in their midst. But Death was plotting against 
his peace. Both his children, " sole ofispring of his house and heart," 
were stricken by disease and died. He followed them to the grave in 
quick succession. Poor Lippard ! 

But this was not all. His sister, Harriet Newell, for whom he 
cherished a brother's love, almost romantic in its excess, was laid low 
with the consumption. Her fair form had been long pining away under 
that insidious disease. She died, and another star was blotted out of 
Lippard's little sky of happiness. He might now say with the despair- 
ing cry of the poet — 

" Insatiate Archer ! would not one sufBce .' 
Thy shaft flaw thrice — and thrice my peace was slain !" 

How devotedly he loved Jiis sister Harriet may be seen by the follow- 
ing dedication to " Paul Ardenheim :" 

TO MY SISTEH, 

HARRIKT NEWKLL LIPPARD. 

With the hope that pome portion of the purity and truth of your nature may be 
found emhodied in these pages, in the character of Catharine Ardenheim, I dedicate 
this bock to you. I might inscribe upon this page some name indicative of worldly 
power :ind worldly wealth, but there is no power beneath heaven like that which de- 
rives its impulses from a sister's counsels ; there is no wealth that can compare for a 
moment with the priceless treasure of a sisters love. 

When your eye for the first time rests upon this page — when you discover that 
without your permission or knowledge I have written your name at the head of these 
lines — I beseech you to regard the act as a word of blessing from a brother to a sister. 
Regard it thus, and, at th.e same time, accept it as a memorial of the years of orphan- 
age we have spent together. It is true that, with but a few exceptions, the name we 
bear is only borne by those who sleep their last in the silence of the grave. I write your 
name, — here — upon my book — and ask you to remember the days when all was dark 
with mp; when my name was uttered with the hiss of calumniation, and my life 



68 DEATH OF HIS WIFE. 

poisoned by every slander that malice could invent or falsehood ennnciate ; but -when 
my sister, scarcely more than a child in years, was my friend — almost the only friend 
I had on the earth of God — when she stood by me, with the counsels of a sister's love, 
and said, in face of cloud and danger, " Brother, God-speed !" 

GEORGE LIPPARD. 

But the prostration of the father — the brother — was not enough. 
Only one joy remained, blooming in his desolate soul like a flower in a 
wilderness. That must be crushed. His wife, who had been failing in 
health for some time, was placed upon her dying bed, and the ghastly 
form of Consumption stood by its side. At last the fearful blow fell like 
a bolt upon him. His wife died. This was in June, 1851. Lippard 
had suffered griefs before under which many a man would have reeled to 
the earth. He had lost his father and mother ; he had seen two of his 
sisters carried to the narrow house appointed for all the living ; he had 
buried the sweet blossoming hopes of his household. He had survived 
these terrible allotments of fate, and still had something of cheerfulness 
and buoyancy about him, when the destroyer again conies, and ruthlessly 
tears away the last affection that clung like the soft tendrils of 
a vine about his withered heart. " His household gods lay shivered 
round him." And from the midst of this wreck, we can imagine him 
looking upon the dreary waste of the past, and straining into the future 
that stretched before him, " dark and rainy," no longer the promised land 
of a chivalric ambition, but a joyless desert, in which hope was to be 
blotted out and memory a curse ! 

It is surprising to those who knew Mr. Lippard that this gigantic sor- 
row did not drive him mad upon the spot. That his mind was moment- 
arily affected by it we have no doubt. His grief so swallowed up every 
other faculty, that reason for the time must have tottered on its throne. 

At the funeral, this aberration manifested itself in a startling manner. 
The distracted husband seated himself by the side of the coffin and 
drummed listlessly upon the lid while the services were progressing at 
his house. He could never recollect the occurrence when told of it by 
others. To those who have experienced the prostrating effect of a great 
grief the phenomenon is easily explained. 

What his feelings must have been when, standing beside the grave, he 
saw the beloved remains of his wife lowered out of his sight into the 
cold and relentless earth, who can describe ! And then came the mor- 
row — and he was alone ! How sweetly (because naturally) these touch- 
ing lines from an old epitaph portray the utter despair of a mind like his 
upon the morrow — and alone I 



J THE '^ WUITE BANNER." 69 

" Have you felt a spouse expiring 
In your arms before your view ; 
Watched the lovely soul retiring ^ 

From her eyes that broke on you ? 
Did not grief then grow romantic, 

Raving on remembered bliss ? 
Did you not, with fervor frantic. 

Kiss the lips that felt no kiss 
From that gloomy trance of sorrow, 

When you woke to pangs unknown, 
How unwelcome was the morrow. 
For it rose on you alone !" 
Lippard's married life was a Paradise on earth. His commonest 
friendships were warmer and more confiding than most men's love. 
What must have been his love — and for such a wife ! he, ardent, im- 
passioned, ever hunting objects of adoration in the earth and skies ; she, 
gentle, trusting, and resting calmly in his affection. 

Every man who has read " David Copperfield," though he has admired, 
and, eventually, come to love the character of Agnes — the sensible, 
thoughtful, considerate woman — has loved all along, and still more ten- 
derly, that of Dora, the " child-wife," pretending to no strength, a timid, 
girlish, harmless, loving creature. Her very weakness is the secret of her 
power. We remember Lippard telling us that when he read " David 
Copperfield" to his wife, as the numbers appeared, she used to say of 
Dora, " That is me ; I am the child-wife." Dora was, at least in all her 
affectionate and winning ways, her very portrait. 

Philadelphia was never the same place after this sad bereavement that 
it had ever been before. At that time, especially, it was unendurable. 
Every thing reminded him of the dear one he had lost. Sky, trees, 
buildings, pavement — all objects, however humble, that they had known 
in their happy wedded days — brought her memory back to him, and opened 
afresh the springs of his grief. He determined to leave the city and 
journey to the West. He made the necessary arrangements for the com- 
fort of his two venerable aunts during his absence (leaving his house and 
furniture in their keeping), and started off for a " change of scene," for 
which, with Childe Harold, he was almost willing to " seek the shades 
below." 

Just before he left Philadelphia (in July), the first number of his 
" White Banner" appeared. It was intended for a Quarterly Miscellany, 
and furnishes another proof of Lippard's unwearied industry. It was 
meant to be an organ of the Brotherhood, and also to contain all of Lip- 
pard's writings from that date. The number before us comprises 152 large 



70 LEAVES PHILADELPHIA FOB TOE WEST. 

pages of general reading matter, and the constitution of the subordinate 
Circles of the Brotherhood, with some introductory remarks, in 24 
pages more. Among the contents is " Adonai, the Pilgrim of Eternity," 
a beautiful story, in which the author embodies his views of Christ, His 
mission, and the true means of elevating humanity. It is written in a 
simpler, severer, more " classical" style than his previous works. 
Lippard was wont to pride himself upon it, and with justice, as a good 
piece of idiomatic English. He thought it, in point of style, the best 
product of his pen. Most literary judges will agree with him. We 
give extracts from it elsewhere. Besides " Adonai," we have twelve 
graphic " Legends of Every Day," eight articles under the head 
of " Brotherhood versus Atheistic Sectarianism," an address to the 
Brotherhood, and numerous brief editorial jottings. The " White Ban- 
ner was printed on costly white paper, in thick paper covers, and alto- 
gether made a beautiful volume. Price, two dollars per year, in advance ; 
50 cents per volume, or twenty copies for twenty dollars. The under- 
taking was large, the expense of publication heavy, the success only par- 
tial, Lippard was disheartened, bowed down by his domestic sufferings, 
and the second number never appeared. 

He appears to have marked (s.it no particular line of travel. He cared 
little whither he went, so that he was far away from the haunts of his 
domestic calamities. We know that he traveled through Northern New 
York, stopping at cities or large towns along the way where Circles of 
the " Brotherhood of the Union" were established, visiting them and as- 
sisting them by his counsel and sympathy. 

He spent some days at Rochester in the family of Dr. Halsted. We 
speak of this to introduce a beautiful sketch — " The Other World." It 
was written under peculiar circumstances. Lippard, wherever ho was, 
or by whomever surrounded, was caught away at times by visions of that 
Aidenn— where all that he so fondly loved upon earth were living and 
waiting for him. He already began to think of it as his home. In one 
of these rapt moods he requested a daughter of Mr. Halsted to write 
down as he should dictate. The following was enunciated as rapidly as 
it could be put upon paper. It was afterward incorporated in the story 
of Adonai, in the " White Banner." 

THE OTHER WORLD. 

We see through a glass darkly, and dim shapes are moving there over the deep 
ocean of the other -world. 

From distant darkness, see ! even from that vast and shoreless sea, white hands are 
lifted, beckoning ; yes, after all, 'tis only a barrier of frailest glass that separates the 



" THE OTHER WOIILD." 71 

present from tli3 other -world. Against that frail barrier for ages the waves have been 
breaking, and their murmurs have been to us "whispers of eternal truth. 

We stand in cold and darkness — our hearts bowed, our feet weary, our eyes heavy 
with much watching — •while before us stretches that dim and awful glass, the only 
barrier that divides us from eternity. 

Now and then lifting our eyes, we gaze through the darkened glass and feel some 
glimpaes of the fathomless sea that rolls beyond it. 

We listen, even in weariness and despair, and hear some murmurs from that sound- 
ing sea, and many a white form glides by us, and many a word, spoken in some well- 
remembered tone, floats to us, and then the dark ocean, no longer dark, is set with 
islands of living light. 

A sad, yet beautiful, contrast. 

Here, all cold, all weariness, all despair ; there, opening deep after deep, groups of 
happy homes swarming with happy faces bathed in eternal light, and only a glass 
barrier is between. Here, wandering children seeking with blind eagerness some 
glimpses of the Father's face ; there, the wandering child is home again. There, 
ranged in countless circles that spread deep after deep through the abysses of 
Eternity, is seen nothing but children gazing in the Father's face. 

Not vague, nor vain, nor transitory is the life of the other world. It is no dream, 
but a reality— a realitj^ so beautiful that our hearts, sick with suffering, are fright- 
ened at its very beauty. New duties are there, and new life for all of us ; and always 
a brighter future — always golden steps to mount. 

Sometimes the glass barrier becomes transparent in dreams, in sleep, in visions, 
which for a little while free the soul from its casement of clay, and sometimes in those 
thoughts wliich imperceptibly and voicelossly sink into our souls. And in these times 
we gain a vision — rather a clear sight — not so much of the gorgeous complete of 
Eternitj^ as of some single home of the other world ; some home where live as in our 
woi'ld men and women and children, but men and women and children redeemed and 
purified by sacrifice, and with their faces glowing with the highest, deepest thought 
which God ever implanted in the breast of an immortal nature. 

Then in our dreams let us a little wliile alight upon the shores of one of these 
happy islands which are strewn along the deep clear sea of Eternity. Let us enter 
for a little while one of these homes. 

Listen ! There are voices sounding now which we heard in old times when we were 
of the lower earth ; our hands are grasped by hands that we thought long ago were 
chilled by Death, forgetting that in Cod's universe there is no such thing as death, 
but in its place only a transition from one life or state of life to another. 

And dwelling thus a little while in a home like this, we will be very silent, for the 
faces that we once knew are again gathering around us, and the voices that we once 
heard — hark ! — are in our ears, and at every step a form uprises, wliitc and beautiful, 
that long ago we had given to the dust. And surveying this one home, we find that 
here are repeated all those afTections which made supportable our dreary way in yon- 
der earth — affections, stripped of all that clogged their brightness, and made 
eternal. 

But when leaving this one home we raise our eyes to the higher mj'steries of 
Eternity, we fall back dazzled and bewildered with excess of beauty, conscious, how- 
ever, that throughout the eternal world, alike in every sphere, however different in 
intellect and in gradations of intellect, tliis law prevails - the heart in every sphere is 



72 DESPONDENCY. 

one ; one, and one fathomless cliain of love binds the humblest intelligence and the 
greatest to the heart of Divinity. 

Thoughts like these are but a part of the mysterious murmurs which now, as in all 
ages, break against the darkened glass. And let us not, although dazzled and won 
by the brightness of the prospect yonder, forget that here on this earth we have a 
way to walk and a work to do. 

Here — the dai-kened glass shall not oftentimes for us be lifted, but always ; always 
— always when our hearts are saddest, and the cloud of life hangs heaviest, let us 
bend our ears and listen to the murmurs of the Eternal Sea, for those murmurs after 
all are but dim or faint echoes of the voice of the Father. And when faith is dim 
and cold, and doubt is on us, and we can not hear the voices of that sea ; when the 
darkened glass grows yet darker ; let us then, in childlike gentleness, retreat within 
ourselves and look into our own hearts. 

The eternal sea is always sounding there. 

While in Rochester he visited Mrs. Fish and the Misses Fox, the 
pioneers in Spiritualism. He had long entertained the belief that spir- 
its have a power of communicating with the tenants of the flesh. He 
was moved with a desire no less to gratify his curiosity than to obtain a 
message from his departed loved ones. How he succeeded in the latter 
wish we do not know. According to his own account, the physical mani- 
festations were peculiarly striking. He used to say that he received 
three sharp blows, from an unseen hand, upon his shoulder. He was so 
overpowered with emotion that he almost fainted away. But we shall 
speak of this subject more at length hereafter. 

He found friends everywhere — but, alas ! none to supply the niches 
made vacant by the past. At length he reached Niagara Falls in com- 
pany with a tried and valued friend. Here all the despair which threat- 
ened his sanity in Philadelphia seems to have come back upon him with 
triple force. We can see him, walking by the side of the thundering 
cataract, looking down into its deep " hell of waters," and likening their 
seething, restless whirl to the unceasing tumult of his own bewildered 
heart. We can hear him asking himself, in scarcely audible voice, that 
awful question — so often asked — never to be answered till another 

world — 

" To die — to sleep — 
No more ; and by a sleep to say we end 
The heart-ache, and the natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to — * * * to die ; — to sleep ;— 
To sleep ! perchance to dream ; — ay, there's the rub." 

Those who have experienced no real practical grief in this world of 
ours — whose sorrows have been only poetical self-tortures, butterfly 
miseries — who have never been brought square up, face to face, with a 
mighty heart-crushing sorrow — may laugh at this as weakness. But it 



lippaed's oratory. 73 

was with Lippard a stern and solemn question, whether this life, after all 
the lights which made it radiant for him had been one by one put out, 
was worth living for. And as he loitered upon the verge of the frightful 
precipice, and noted how easy it was to end his miseries at once, it is cer- 
tainly not strange that the dread question should still knock at the portals 
of his mind. We can not believe that he ever deliberately determined to 
commit suicide. But the idea seems to have haunted him like a phantom. 
At times he was upon the point of yielding to its horrible suggestions. 

He went so far as to draw up directions relative to the action of the 
" Brotherhood of the Union" after his death. His conduct one day 
greatly alarmed his friend, and, but for his interference, Lippard might, 
in a rash moment, have plunged headlong into another world. They 
were walking along the brink of the American falls when poor Lippard made 
a sudden step forward, as if to take the fearful leap. His friend, suspecting 
the intention, sprang, caught him, and violently pulled him back. After this 
Lippard became reconciled to life. He triumphed over his tormenting 
thoughts, and although wholly indifferent to the future, still consented to 
live. 

The next that we hear of him is at Cleveland, whither he had gone 
from Buffalo, with the same vague, restless yearnings that drove him from 
Philadelphia. Here he found many noble and ardent friends, who im- 
mediately set themselves to work to make his stay as pleasant as possible. 
At the request of numerous admirers he delivered his lecture on " Arnold," 
at Empire Hall. A large audience convened, and the lecture, as usual 
with every thing from his lips, gave complete satisfaction. 

His style of speaking was totally original. It was precisely what you 
would look for in such a man. It used to remind us at times of (he im- 
passioned oratory of Rufus Choate. Then, again, it bore some resem- 
blance to the fiery action of Gavazzi. But it was neither the one nor the 
other. It was stamped with Lippard's individuality just as vividly as his 
writings. Indeed, his orations and speeches upon all topics were very 
much like his books. And this shows that his nervous style, about which 
critics have made themselves so unhappy, was not an affectation put on 
to tickle the " million," but the natural garb of his thoughts. 

Fancy a person, such as we have described Lippard, standing before 
you, and commencing to speak in a low but perfectly audible monotone. 
You hear, even in the lowest note, however, a quiver, a thrill, which 
shows you that the speaker feels what he says. Presently he straightens 
up, steps forward, raises his voice, and giving himself up to the hot im- 
petuosity of his imagination, pours forth a torrent of rapid words, which, 



74 HIS LABOES FOR THE BKOTIIERnOOD. 

but for the clear, sharp ring of each, would be a mere jumble of sounds. 
Fancy the speaker now sweeping back, with his small hand, his long 
hair as it falls forward upon his brow ; now raising one arm to heaven ; 
now bringing down both hands at a time, as he emphatically denounces 
some giant wrong ; now pointing the " slow finger of unmoving scorn" at 
some petty meanness ; and now stamping his foot passionately upon the 
ground. Fancy this, and you have some idea of Lippard as a speaker. 

Mr. Lippard also occupied much of his time, and derived great solace 
in his bereavements, by attending to the duties which devolved upon him 
as the " S. W.," or highest officer in the Brotherhood of the Union. 
These duties were arduous, and demanded the greatest patience, in- 
dustry, and punctuality. Lippard had to correspond extensively with 
Grand Circles, and Circles of the Order in the various States ; was ex- 
pected to give his advice upon all doubtful questions that might arise ; 
and, what was fully as difficult, to keep an account of the financial con- 
dition of the Brotherhood. These toilsome labors he performed with 
great fidelity and zeal. He made the task a pleasure. Nothing seemed 
to give him more delight than when a new circle was formed. The 
Brotherhood, as we have heretofore shown, was the child of his earliest 
thoughts and ambition, and the object of his constant solicitude. He 
always spoke, conversed, wrote of it, with the highest enthusiasm. And 
nothing, we believe, would have given him greater happiness (had he 
possessed the means) than to have traveled forever among the circles of 
the Union, helping the faltering, strengthening the backsliding, and 
establishing new circles, even to the remotest parts of the land. 

It was a peculiarity of Mr. Lippard's, that, while he was careless to a 
fault in his own affuirs, he attended with the most scrupulous diligence 
to the pecuniary concerns of the Order. His account-books had a taste- 
ful mercantile appearance, which you would scarcely look for in an old 
professional author. We heard a gentleman, who knew Lippard well, 
remark, that he would willingly trust millions of dollars in his hands. 
He was prodigal only of his own means. Money confided to him he 
seemed to regard with the vigilant jealousy of one of the old genii in the 
Fairy Tales. 

Speaking of the neatness of Mr. Lippard's account-book, we may re- 
mark here, that he was equally nice in his every-da'y handwriting. Au- 
thors are proverbial for their shabby scrawls, and the best half of their 
life is usually spent in squabbling with printers. Many affect to write an 
outrageous hand, under the impression that it is prima facie evidence of 
genius. With Mr. Lippard, however, the love of neat, shapely chirog- 



PECULIARITIES OF HIS HANDWKITINQ. Y5 

raphy was carried to an extent almost fantastic. He always selected 
the best possible paper within his means. No dainty cream-laid Bath 
post was ever too good for him. His next great trouble was to find a 
perfectly easy pen. One that caught or tripped on the paper, or blotted, 
disturbed him beyond measure. He would go through a whole gross, 
but he would find just the pen to suit him. Paper and pen having been 
obtained, our fastidious author proceeded to dip his pen in ink (always 
the blackest of the black, nothing else would suit), and wrote straight on 
in a small, feminine hand, which he " who runs can read." It resembles 
very closely the symmetrical autograph of Thomas Moore, or, perhaps 
more nearly still, that of Edgar A. Foe. This he would keep up hour 
after hour on a stretch, with a certain steady, not impetuous, movement, 
which got over the ground amazingly. He had a great pride in keeping 
his pages free from blot, or erasure, or interlineation. He could not say 
with Shakespeare, that he " never blotted out a line," but there are few 
authors who have written so much, and so well, who have blotted out 
fewer words than Lippard. He could never write slowly. His hot im- 
pulses could not brook the tedious process of polishing and refining. He 
delighted to pen his thoughts as they issued hot and smoking from his 
brain. 

We present upon the two following pages an accurate copy of Lip- 
j)ard's manuscript. It is an extract from a letter dated Philadelphia, June 
25th, 1853, in which the writer prophesied that he should not live a year 
from that date. How sadly it was fulfilled! The letter is a touching 
and interesting reminiscence of the unhappy author. It also furnishes a 
fair idea of Lippard's habitual handwriting. We give a printed version 
of the letter in another part of the book, in its proper chronological 
order. 

Those who knew Mr. Lippard while in Cleveland, speak in the highest 
terms of his sociable and amiable disposition. He had, of course, a {^w 
friends with whom he was more intimate than with any one else. W^ith 
these he would converse about his personal history, and especially his 
disappointments and griefs, in the confidence of one brother to another. 
He had no secrets to those who knew him well ; but any person could 
easily form his acquaintance. He made every body feel at their ease 
upon the first introduction, and if they possessed any attractive traits — 
especially those of candor and manliness — it was their own fault if their 
relations with Lippard did not ripen into friendship. A friendship having 
once being formed was slow to be shaken. Lippard was an unsuspecting 
man. Scorning to do a treacherous act himself, he was loth to believe 



76 




«! ■« ^ V ^ 




T7 




78 SITTING ON THE LAKE SHOKE. 

that any body else could be capable of it. In many cases nothing short 
of downright duplicity, upon the very best proofs, could induce him to 
break with a friend. 

Many persons in Cleveland, upon the perusal of these lines, will recall 
the delightful hours they have spent with our deceased friend. He loved 
above all things to stroll down to the lake and look off upon its broad 
blue bosom. The view was enchanting. The city is situated upon a 
table-land about one hundred and twenty feet above the water. 'J'o the 
right and the left may be seen long points of land, stretching away with 
a gradual curve, till they mingle with the sky. Steamers with huge 
serpentine volumes of black smoke trailing behind them are always in 
sight, making for Detroit, Toledo, Buffalo, Chicago, Sandusky, and other 
ports. White sails are seen at every point of the compass scudding 
before the wind, bearing on their snowy wings the fruits of commerce 
and industry. Restless sea-gulls are beating above the waves, now dip- 
ping down and dashing through their foamy crests, and now rising 
with a glad cry, and defying the wind with strong pinions. But oh! 
most glorious sight of a summer evening, when the sun goes down upon 
the lake in all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance" of kingly power! 
They may talk of sunsets in Italy, and the evening splendors discernible 
from the tops of high mountains, but for sunsets "properly got up," with 
every appliance of luxury, and continued from day to day with exhaustless 
magnificence, commend us to the lake shore at Cleveland. The lake 
commingles with the sky in welcoming the monarch of the heavens to 
his daily repose. It reflects back with added luster the splendid color."* 
of red, purple, orange, and gold, so prodigally lavished upon his march. 
Far over the vast expanse of waters he throws a shining track — ending 
at the very shore beneath your feet. And even when his topmost crest 
has descended into the waves, a beauty still lingers upon the sky and 
water, fading away by slow degrees into a soft and delicious twilight. It 
was Lippard's custom to sit upon a log — he had a favorite one — and 
watch these delightful sunsets till he lost a sense of himself and his 
suflerings in the contemplation. At such times he would speak with 
rapture of his trusts in the Christian religion, and his hopes in a glorious 
immortality. Those who had seen him only in his more playful hours 
had no idea, till then, of the depth and earnestness of his religious con- 
victions. 

To illustrate the singular ease with which Lippard made promiscuous 
acquaintances, we relate an incident told us by a friend. Walking down 
to the lake one evening, he saw a large crowd sitting on the grass and 



LIPPAED AS A STORY-TELLER. " FRESH WA-AERER." 79 

sand near the bank. Hastening forward to learn the cause of this singular 
out-door congregation, he found George seated in the midst of them telling 
one of his wild Revolutionary legends. The group was composed of all 
classes of people who, happening to be strolling in the neighborhood, had 
on*'by one clustered about the fascinating narrator. They listened with 
breathless interest while the speaker poured forth with a vehement rush 
of language one of those enchanting Revolutionary legends which none 
could tell as well as he. As a story-teller we have never met his 
equal. Speaking in a low but always distinct voice, and very rarely 
indulging in gestures, he still had a way of "getting ofT" an anecdote, or 
reminiscence, or a legend that was perfectly delightful. lie always grasped 
the strong points of description and made them vivid to the listener. 

He excelled, above all things, in a kind of dry humor peculiarly his 
own. This, accompanied by a sly look of his eye and a lurking drollery 
about his mouth, eflected wonders with any audience. There was some- 
thing magnetic about the man by which, without any seeming effort, he 
found a ready response in the heart of every hearer. He was given 
to relating facetious anecdotes of persons he had met in his rounds, and 
often " took off," with playful exaggeration, the oddities and whimsicali- 
ties of well-known public men. He was always on the alert for funny 
incidents, and when he traveled invariably laid up a large stock of 
materials for future anecdotes. 

It was astonishing, as we have said, how much he could make out of 
the most trifling occurrence, by his mode of telling it. For example, 
while traveling westward, he stopped over night at a hotel in a. city of 
Western New York. He retired late to bed, and, being overcome with 
the fatigues of the journey, hoped to have a good sound night's rest. He 
was no sooner asleep, however, than he was awakened by a mysterious 
cry of " Fresh wa-arrer," issuing from a room near by. It came from a 
drunken man. who, having taken only one "night-cap" too much, began 
to feel rather hot and dusty about the throat and wanted a glass of " fresh 
wa-arrer" (fresh water) to " cool him off." The sounds grew fainter, and 
IJppard turned over and went to sleep again, when he was again aroused 
by " Fresh wa-arror" given with more emphasis than ever. By-and-bv 
the cry lulled again, and poor Lippard once more snatched a ^e\\ winks 
of repose. But he no sooner got snugly dozing than " TVesh wa-arrer. 
Fresh wa-arrer" would "murder slee[)" again, and so it continued at 
intervals through the whole night. Lippard was so fond of the grotesque, 
that while he execrated his drunken neighbor, he mu.st have chuckled to 
himself at the " Fresh wa-arrer." To hear him tell this little story with 



80 LIPPAED AND A PENNSYLVANIA FAP.MEE. 

his ludicrous imitation of the "bubbling cry" was worth a "good bit" of 
a man's lifetime. 

He sometimes gleaned a vast deal of amusement from ignorant but 
well-meaning people, who, their curiosity being excited by his singular 
appearance (long hair, rolling collar, etc.), ventured to poke questions at 
him. 

An honest Pennsylvania farmer, riding in the same car with Lippard, 
looked for a long time at him with silent amazement. At last he could 
restrain his rising anxiety no longer, and so he addressed our author 
with — 

" What do you foller, mister ?" 

Lippard. — " I am an author." 

Pennsylvania Farmer. — " What's that ere ?" 

Lippard (amused). — " I write books." 

Pennsylvania Farmer.. — " That takes larnin', I s'pose." 

Lippard (modestly). — " Yes." 

Pennsylvania Farmer. — "You must have lots of larnin' to do that." 

Lippard (drily). — " Chunks of it .'" 

The Pennsylvania farmer said no more, but withdrew to a corner to 
contemplate with renewed curiosity the owner of the " chunks" afore- 
said. 



George used to tell a very funny anecdote illustrative of military dis- 
cipline. 

It ran somewhat in this wise : 

There was a great parade of militia on an occasion and at a place 
which shall be nameless. At the head of the gallant soldiery then and 
there assembled was a very gallant general, who to the worship of Mars 
added at times a devotion to the jollier god Bacchus. In short, " not to 
put too fine point upon it," he was addicted to the human weakness of 
getting drunk occasionally. 

Our doughty commander discharged the arduous duties of his high 
station at this parade with his usual ability. He galloped incessantly to 
and fro ; he shouted till he was hoarse ; he superintended complex mili- 
tary movements ; he was unmoved in the face of several thousand mus- 
kets firing off their contents (blank cartridges) simultaneously ; he was a 
very Napoleon in the midst of a sham-battle. 

At the close of the day the brave general naturally felt fatigued. He 
retired to his tent, not to indulge in meditation, but — a glass of brandy- 



GUARDING A STONE-HEAP. A TALE OF TUE MILITIA. 81 

and-water. One glass " brought on" another. The mighty battalions 
were standing in grim array outside the tent, staring intensely into the 
air, while their adored captain was chuckling OA'er his cups and relaxing 
the rein of his. military dignity. In short, he was kicking up his heels all 
alone and enjoying himself generally. 

A thought suddenly slipped in between his potations : other great gene- 
rals were in the habit of putting the military discipline of the soldiers to 
severe tests ; why should not he ? He acted upon the idea. He 
emerged from his tent ; he succeeded by an echelon movement in reach- 
ing his horse ; he mounted the noble steed by a masterly strategy ; he 
rode past the long files of soldiers, swaying gently to and fro in his sad- 
dle (poor man ! how fatigued he was !). At length he reached his favor- 
ite corps — a crack company — the " Old Guard" of the rural army. 

He fastened his eagle eye upon this company, and, in a tragic voice, 
gave the order, " Follow !" 

" To hear is to obey." The general trotted lightly over the field, and 
the " Old Guard" followed accordingly. It was evident they had been 
selected for a post of honor. Glorious thought ! The " Old Guard" 
marched on with heads erect, eyes flashing. " Do or die" was written 
on every man's physiognomy. 

On trotted the dauntless general ; on marched the indomitable troops. 

At length they reached a meadow, a little distance removed from the 
martial camp. In the middle of this meadow was a huge stone-heap, 
looking like a rude Sebastopol waiting to be attacked. The general, 
upon reaching this stone-heap, halted. By a series of maneuvers, 
which no ordinary mind could begin to comprehend, he formed the sol- 
diers in a circle about this pile of rocks. He ordered them to point their 
muskets inward and keep guard over the stone-heap till they received 
orders to quit. The general having done all this rode majestically from 
the field. 

Now came the test of military discipline. Did the veterans of many 
a well-fought muster-field falter ? No, sir ! They knew not why they 
were ordered to guard a stone-heap ; they could not exactly comprehend 
why they should point their muskets inward instead of outward. But 
what business had they to inquire into the propriety of these things 1 
None at all ! They had received orders. To violate them would be in- 
subordination. The " Old Guard" would have died first. 

The hours rolled on ; but there stood the " Old Guard." No murmur 
betrayed impatience ; no ill-timed laxity found vent in a laugh. There 
stood the " Old Guard" pointing their muskets silently at the stone-heap 

6 



82 LIPPAED AS AN ACTOR AND MIMIC. 

and keeping as strict " watch and ward" over it as if it had been dia- 
monds. The hours rolled on, midnight came, still no complaints, no re- 
laxation of " fierce deportment ;" their beloved leader had not given 
them orders to retire. With the pride of the original " Old Guard" when 
called upon to " pitch in" at some terrible crisis, they stood as silent and 
motionless as the rocks encircled by their bayonets. On dragged the 
hours, but brought no general with them, for the very good reason, that 
that illustrious personage was within his tent calmly snoring off the 
effects of innumerable draughts of " fire-water," better known as " fourth 
proof." 

Morning came, but found the " Old Guard" unwinking. At last, just 
as their warlike stomachs were beginning to groan for breakfast (they 
would have starved rather than moved), the general — who was by this 
time tolerably sober — sent an order releasing them. Off marched the 
" Old Guard," preserving their rigidity to the last, with the proud con- 
sciousness of having nobly done their duty. 



Lippard, with a little practice, would have made a capital actor. He 
had an active figure, a face full of expression, and a power of mimicry 
rarely equaled upon the stage. He would have been successful either 
in tragedy or comedy. He was fond of repeating favorite passages from 
plays, and would do it at the most unexpected times. We have seen 
him start up suddenly while writing and give sentences from Bulwer's 
" Richelieu" (which he much admired) with all the intensity of his na- 
ture. He seemed, for the time, to transfuse himself into the character 
he assumed. He used to make a " telling thing" of that splendid burst 
of eloquence when the old Cardinal replies to the taunt of Baradas — 
" His mind and life are breaking fast." 

" Irreverent ribald! 
If so, bevrare the foiling ruins. Hark ! 
I tell tliee, scorner of these whitening hairs, 
When this snow melteth there shall come a flood. 
Avaunt ! my name is Richelieu. I defy thee. 
Walk blindfold on. Behind thee stalks the headsman. 
Ha ! ha ! How pale he is ! Heaven save my country." 

Having uttered this, Lippard would take his seat and resume work as 
if nothing had happened to interrupt it. 

His burlesques upon opera singing were very rich. He used to take 
hold of some common theme, any thing that offered, and work it up in 
the genuine operatic style. His upper notes might not have been quite 



LIPPARD AND SFlPwITUALTSil. S3 

as pure as Mario's, nor his bass as heavy as that of Lablache, but in the 
business of " pihng up the agony" he beat both of them. LipparJ and 
a friend were once walking along a street in Philadelphia, when the 
former paused before an oyster-cellar that sent a wealth of perfume upon 
the outer air, and, striking an attitude, sang this ludicrous impromptu, or 
something very near it, con expressionc : 

" What is it— oh, tell! 
Makes such a smell ? 

"Tis oyster-cell. 

Here's oysters stewed or in the shell, 
Or fried, or broiled, or, if you wish, 
You can have them on the chafing-dish— 
The chafing-dish — the chafing-dish — the 
Cha-a-a-a-a-fing-dish." 

But to be " appreciated," as the advertisements say, this performance 
should have been " seen" and heard. 



Mr. Lippard at this time, as on occasions before mentioned, held a 
belief, to a certain extent, in Spiritualism. After the death of his wife his 
previous impressions upon the subject (derived from his visit to Rochester 
m 1850) were deepened, but with the exception of the mysterious blows 
inflicted upon him at Rochester, we are not aware that he was ever visited 
with any astonishing manifestations. His Spiritual theory was peculiarly 
his own. He was no man's disciple. He believed that we could com- 
municate with the spirits of the departed — but beyond that he accepted 
little or none of the popular Spiritual dogmas. 

While we are upon this subject, we will mention, in advance of the course 
of this narrative, that Lippard delivered several lectures upon Spiritualism 
in Philadelphia, in the winter of 1852. The substance of his teachings 
was, that we have the power to communicate with the spirits of the dead 
bv thoughts and impressions ; but he did not espouse the theory or 
advance the alleged facts of physical manifestations. 

He used to say that he conversed silently with his deceased companions 
upon earth while sitting alone in his room. Ho asserted that he felt at 
times the pressure of a cold hand upon his forehead. We do not say 
how much his vivid imagination might have contributed to these impres- 
sions. We are putting down Lippard's notions, and not our own. He 
loved to believe that the form of his wife continually attended him. We 
remember that on one occasion, when Lippard and the writer were sitting 
together in a room, he suddenly pointed over his shoulder, and with an 



84 HIS VIEW OF CHKI3T. 

earnest eye, said, "There is a figure in a shroud there! It is always 
behind me." He never spoke with greater sincerity. 

These visions haunted him so constantly that he was sometimes appre- 
hensive of going mad with his own wild fancies. He disliked to be 
alone. He rushed into society to escape the torture of solitude. After 
a friend had been spending the whole evening with him in social chat he 
would beseech him, in tones of piteous entreaty, to stay all night. When 
once asked " Why?" he replied, " For ten thousand reasons." Poor Lip- 
pard ! 

" Great wits to madness nearly are allied, 
And thin partitions do tlieir bounds divide." 

When to his natural sensitiveness the horrors of his domestic calamities 
were superadded, the wonder is that he did not lose all control of his 
reason. 

He continued to trust in Christ, or " the Master," as he loved to call 
him, WMth the same serene resignation as ever. Whatever he might have 
thought of the Old Testament, or of certain portions of the New Testament, 
he revered and adored the character of Christ. Nothing incensed him 
so much as to hear a contempt or insult flung upon His sacred name. 
Upon no theme would he kindle so readily and so grandly as upon that. 
The feeling that he held toward the Master was one of love and trust. He 
rested in Him. He was the forerunner of all the good that had been 
developed in Human History. He was the Great Reformer. He was 
the friend of the poor, the oppressed, the suffering, and He was the enemy 
of the extortioner, the grinding landlord, those who devour widows' 
houses and make long prayers. A man of Lippard's peculiarities could 
not but love such a Christ as that, and he always had the courage and 
honesty to own it. For it docs require both courage and honesty for a 
man living and moving in the busy world that he did, to acknowledge his 
belief in the Saviour, and to defend Him against the taunts and jeers of 
the scoffing crowd. The precise view that he held of Jesus and His 
divine mission to the earth may be learned from this eloquent passage in 
the second volume of his " Washington and his Generals :" 

Let me tell you at once, my friends, that I stand here to-night a prejudiced man. 
Let me at once confess, that it has ever been my study, my love, to bend over the 
dim pages of the Hebrew volume — to behold the awful form of Jehovah pending over 
chaos ; to hear that voice of Omnipotence resound through the depths of space, as 
these words break on my soul : "Vayomer Aloheim : yehee aur vayehee aur!" — 
Then spake God : Let there be light, and light there was .'" 

Or yet again, to behold that Jehovah, descended from the skies, walking youder 
yrith the Patriarchs, yonder where the palms arise, and the tents whiten over the 



HIS VIEW OF CHRIST. 85 

plain. Or, in the silence of night, to look there through the lone wilderness, where the 
Pillar of Fire beacons Moses the Deliverer toward the Promised Land; or to enter 
the solemn temple of Jerusalem, and behold the same Jehovah, shining in the holiest 
place, shining over the Ark of the Covenant, so awfully serene, yet sublime. 

Let me tell you, that I have been with the Arab, Job, as he talked face to face 
with God, and in images of divine beauty spoke forth the writhings of his soul; as 
in words that your orators of Greece and Rome never spoke or dreamed, he pictures 
the littleness of life, the Majesty of Omnipotence, the sweet, dear rest of the un- 
troubled grave. " There the wicked cease from troubling and the weary be at rest." 
I have bent over this New Testament, and traced the path of God as he walked 
the earth enshrined in human flesh. Is there no beauty here, to warm the heart and 
fire the brain? Even as we read, does not the face of Jesus start from the page.' — 
that face that painter never painted, with its serene Divinity looking out from the 
clear, deep eyes. That face which we may imagine, with its flowing hair falling 
gently down from the brow where " God" is written in every outline, with the lipa 
wreathing with such eternal love for poor forsaken man, whether he sweats in the 
workshop or grovels in the mine. Yes, I have followed that face, as it appeared 
above the hill-top at even, in the golden twilight of Palestine, and approached the 
Poor Man's hut, and shone in the dark window, upon the hard crust of the slave. 
How the Poor rose up to welcome that face ; how rude men bent down before it and 
wept ; how tender women knelt in its light and gazed in those Divine ej'es ! Then 
how the voice of Jesus rung out upon the air, speaking in dark huts great words that 
shall never die ! 

Yes, I have followed that Man of Nazareth over stony roads, by the waves of 
Galilee, into the Halls of Pilate; and there — yes, up the awful cliffs of Calvary, 
when Jerusalem poured through its gates by tens of thousands, under the darkened 
heavens, over the groaning earth, to look upon the face of the dying God, as the 
heavy air rung with that unspeakable agony: "My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me !" 

Let me at once confess, that if the Bible is a Fable, it is a Fable more beautiful 
than all the classics of Greece and Rome. Paint for me your Cicero and Demosthenes 
in all their glory, and I will paint you that bold forehead and those earnest eyes of 
Saint Paul, as rising from his midnight toil, his voice echoes the words he has just 
written ; those words that live forever, as though each word was an Immortal Soul — 
In a moment, in a twinkling of the eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall 
sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 

For this corruption must put on incorrnption, and' this mortal must put on 
immortality. 

Search your Poets for scenes of that quiet pathos which at once melts and elevates 
the soul — search your Homer, your Shakspeare ; search them all, the venerable 
Seers of Ages, and I will point you to a single line that puts them all to shame ! It 
is in the New Testament, where Jesus the Christ is dead and buried ! It is on that 
serene morning when the sunbeams shine over the sepulcher of the Saviour. Three 
women, the blessed Marys, come there to weep over the body of their Lord. Yes, 
all the world has forsaken him : all save Peter the Faithless, yet Lion-hearted, John 
the Beloved, and these three women. They look into the sepulcher — it is empty. 
The grave-clothes are there, but the Lord is gone. At this moment a poor, abandoned 
woman, whom the good Christ had lifted up to virtue and forgave, even as she washed 



86 HIS VIEW OF CHKIST. 

his feet with her tears — yes, at this moment, sad, tearful, Mary Magdalene approaches 
a being whom she mistakes for the gardener. Listen to the words of Scripture. This 
being speaks : 

" Woman, why weepest thou .'" 

She, supposing him to be the gardener, said unto him, 

'■ Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him and I will 
take him away." 

Jesus saith unto her, "Mary!" 

She turned herself and said unto him, " Master !" 

This is all the gospel says of the matter, but is not this one line full of eternal 
beauty : " Jesus saith unto her, ' Mary !' " No long explanations, no elaborate 
phrase, no attempt to awe or surprise ; but one simple word, that word her name, 
spoken in the tones she loved to hear. 

Can you not hear his voice, speaking in those well-remembered tones ? Can you 
not see his hand extended in a gesture of benediction, as his eyes light up with an 
expression of brotherly tenderness ? 

That one scene by the sepulcher, where the Magdalene, an image of beauty purified 
by religion, bends delighted before the serenely divine face of the risen Jesus, while 
the sunbeams of that calm dawn fall gently over the grave-clothes which no longer 
clasp the dead — that one scene, sublime in its very simplicity, considered as a mere 
composition, is worth all the pathos of Greece and Rome. 

Yes, if the Bible is a Fable, it is a Fable more beautiful than all the iron-hearted 
sophistry of your cold-blooded Philosophers — it is a Fable that through all time has 
girded up the hearts of patriots on the scaffold and the battle-field — it is a Fable that 
has shone like a glory over ten thousand dying beds. If that Bible is a Fable, then 
it is a Fable that bursts like a blaze of love and beauty through the dark cloud of 
human guilt, and lights a way from the dull grave up to Immortality and God. 

Ah, had I been Thomas Paine — had his great brain, his great soul been mine, then 
would I have taken my stand here on the Bible with Jesus. Then from this book 
would I have told the host of hypocrites, who, like slimy lizards, crawl up on the 
Altar of God and sit there in all their loathsomeness, then would I have told these 
mockers of God, that here from this Bible, even the mild spirit of Jesus is roused— 
to rebuke — ^to scorn — to speak terror to their souls ! 

Because hypocrites have made merchandise of God's Book, and split his cross into 
peddler's v/ ares, shall I therefore heap scorn upon that serenely beautiful face, looming 
out from the Bible — that face of Jesus, the Redeemer of Man .' Because hypocrites 
and kings have taken the seamless robe of Christ and parted it into cords, to bind 
men's necks, and hands, and hearts, am I to deride that Ciirist, scorn that Jesus, who 
stands there forever above the clouds of human guilt, the only Redeemer of Man, 
the only Messiah of the Poor ? 



He delighted to contemplate Christ in the light of a poor man, of whom 
the Master himself said : " The foxes have holes, the birds of the air 
have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." 

What can be more beautiful and touching than this — the prologue to 
" The White Banner ?" We quote it entire : 



THE POOR MAN. 87 

THE POOR MAN. 

One day a Rich Man came to a Poor Man, who stood talking by the roadside. 

It was where a fountain, gushing from the rocks and half-shadowed by vines, sprin- 
kled coolness upon the heated dust and sent low music upon the evening air. 

The llich Man was clad in fine apparel : a diamond shone above his young forcheail 
amid the ciirls of his chestnut hair. lie might turn his eyes to the right, and behold 
swelling hills dotted with flocks of sheep and herds of oxen. These were his own. To 
the left, and see white and black men toiling in the harvest of that fruitful land- 
The toiling men and the harvest were alike his own. Gazing to the west, where tho 
last flush of day lingered over the white dome of a palace, he might feast his eyea 
with the prospect of long lines of slaves, who spread before the portals of that palace, 
bearing vessels of silver and gold in their hands. And this palace, these slaves, these 
stores of gold — all were his own. 

Eor he was a Rich Man. The jewel that gathered the folds of his robe across his 
young breast was worth the life-long labor of a hundred slaves. 

And the Poor Man who stood talking by the roadside was clad in the coarse gar- 
ments of toil. The landscape before him was very beautiful — golden harvests bloom- 
ing in the l;ip of emerald valleys — streams of silver winding from the light into the 
shadow, and from shadow into light again — a great palace lifting its white dome into 
the sunset heaven from amid a grove of palms — and yet the poor man could not call 
one inch of ground his own. He knew not where to lay his head. The coarse gar- 
ments which covered him, the rude staff in his hand — these were all his possessions. 

He was a wanderer upon the face of the earth. 

And he stood in the midst of a throng of men who listened to him with earnestness, 
and hung upon every word as though every word was life or death to them. They 
were all poor men — the very poorest of the poor; some clad in rags, and not a few 
crippled by disease, or pitiful with blindness, or miserable to look upon with their 
leper's .sores. 

And the accents of the Poor Man's voice held every ear, and those who were not 
blind I'joked earnestly into his eyes, and one, hulf-kneeling on a solitary rock, re- 
garded with mute wonder — a kind of dumb adoration — the v.hite forehead of the Poor 
Man. 

For the face of the Poor Man, with its flowing hair covered with dust, and its sun- 
burnt cheeks touched by the trace of thought, or time, or hardship, was a face that 
won you to it with peculiar power, and made you wish to look upon it forever, and 
mark the strange light of its eyes, and note the smile which hung about its lips. 

There was, in truth, a strange Power upon that face. 

The Rich Man drew nigh with steps at once languid and eager, with a manner at 
once impetuous and full of dignity. His fair face, and perfumed hair, and jeweled 
robes were terribly contrasted with the rags and lameness, the disease and leprosy, 
which encircled the Poor Man. 

Still he drew nigh. He was won by the face of that Poor Man. May be he had 
heard of him before; may be some story of a wondrous power wielded by this Poor 
Man hail reached the ears of the Rich Man. However, he drew nigh, and quickened 
his steps as the accents of the Poor Man's voice trembled through the silence of the 
evening hour. 

The Rich Man sighed. He pressed his hand to his fair forehead. With all his 



88 THE POOR MAN. 

wealth, his lands and slaves, his harvests and his palaces, he was not at peace with 
himself. He felt his bosom devoured by a gnawing restlessness. He was unhappy, 
and yet the darkness of these blind men had not visited him ; his rounded limbs were 
free from leper's sores ; the curse of the poor man's poverty was not upon his delicate 
hands. 

Still he was not at peace ; for he sighed and pressed his hand to his brow and shud- 
dered within his robes of price. 

He was unhappy. 

Quickening his footsteps he drew near the Poor Man, brushing his fine linen against 
the beggar's rags, and with his gaze fixed upon the dilating eyes of the Poor Man, his 
ear enchained by every sound that fell from the Poor Man's tongue. 

A word rose to his lips. He could not choke it down. And yet that word was 
" Master !" 

He felt that the Poor Man, clad in the humble garb of toil, and with no place to 
lay his head, was his Master ! This Poor Man, encircled by rags and lameness; by 
the cold eyeballs of blindness, and the distorted faces of leprosy, was the Master of 
the Rich Man, who could call the lives of a thousand slaves his own. 

This he felt; and the word " Master" rose to his lips. 

Thrusting himself into the miserable circle, he joined his hands and said in a trem- 
ulous voice — 

" Master ! what shall I do to inherit eternal life ?" 

It was in these words that the burden of his soul found utterance. It was as if he 
had said, What shall I do to be at peace with myself, and while I live, and at the hour 
of my death to have a hold on Immortality ? 

The Poor Man raised his eyes. They were touched with a gleam of divine sadness. 
He looked first upon the face of the Rich Man, then upon the wide harvest fields, and 
the herds of cattle, and the white palace with slaves thronging before its portals — and 
last of all upon the crowd of miserable men who were gathered near him. 

It was a painful contrast. 

For a moment the Poor Man did not reply. He raised his eyes to the sunset sky, 
and his face was invested as with the blessing of God embodied in sunset rays. 

All the while the Rich Man awaited in the anxiety of undisguised suspense the 
words of the Poor Man. 

At last he spoke : 

" Sell all thou hast and give to the Poor .'" 

And at these words the throng of miserable wretches looked up in wonder, and the 
Rich Man retreated backward and bowed his head as suddenly as though some one 
had smote him on the forehead. 

" Sell ALL, thou hast and give to the Poor .'" 

It was as though he had said — 

You have a palace, Rich Man. Let its luxurious chambers be tenanted by the 
blind, the halt, the famine-stricken, who now surround me. You have lands. Rich 
Man. Divide them among the white and black slaves who now gather your harvests 
with the labor of hopeless bondage and baptize their hard-earned food with bitter 
tears. You have herds of oxen. Rich Man, and flocks of sheep upon every hill. Let 
the fleece of your sheep clothe these naked ones ; let the flesh of your beasts give these 
starving ones some nourishment, some life. Sell all thoii hast and give to the Poor, 
for the Poor are as much the children of the great family of God as you are, as much 



" KELIGION." 89 

entitled to his fruits, his air, his lands, as you are ; with as holy a right to peace in 
this world, immortality in the next, as yourself. 

And as the Poor Man spoke, his face lighted up with a serene glory, and with the 
sweetness of his accents there was mingled a strange tone of Power. 

But the Rich Man recoiling from the light of his eyes — frightened by the very sim- 
plicity of these words, which said so much in so brief a compass — turned sadly away, 
and went down the hill-side, now raising his eyes to gaze upon his great possessions, 
now burying his face in his trembling hands. 

But the Poor Man remained near the fountain by the roadside, talking to the blind, 
and the lame, the slave in rags and the leper clad in sores, who gathered near him 
and felt the light of his eyes, while the accents of his voice penetrated their souls. 

Thus it is over all the world, in all ages, among all People. 

The Rich Man goes down the hill, full of restlessness, yet gazing earnestly upon his 
great possessions. 

The Poor Man remains upon the roadside talking to the outcasts of all the world, 
and telling them of their right to Peace in this life and Immortality in the next. 

Of Religion as a creed, a ceremonial, and form of worship, Lippard 
had a thorough contempt. While he yearned with a child-like affection 
for Christ, he hated and execrated the mere " forms, modes, and shows" 
of Christianity with all the hot intensity of his nature. What we here 
quote is only a sample of the habitual detestation with which he regarded 
the modern whited sepulchers of religious faith : 

RELIGION. 

Religion, good friends, does not consist in marble pillars nor in costly vestments, 
much less in the ritual of printed prayers. It does not consist in creed nor in anti- 
creed. It is creedless. When you can bottle the sunshine and lay tax upon the air 
of heaven, then you may attempt to harness Religion in the gear of creeds. Religion 
is that confidence in God which impels us always to trust in him. It is the sublima- 
tion of the affection which exists between the child and the father. The child, having 
confidence in the father, will attempt to do the father's will. It will trust in the 
father through every storm of doubt and adversity. Satisfied that " he doeth all things 
well," it will hang its soul upon his word, and take its fate at his hands. Religion is 
that trust in God which is hope to us when we stand by the grave of a beloved one. 
It is that confidence which, in the hour of death, tells us that we are not dying — only 
" going home." Marriage is Religion. The love of husband and wife is Religion. 
The affection of brother and sister is Religion. The love of father and son, of mother 
and daughter, of mother and son, of father and daughter — these all are Religion. 
Note-shaving is not Religion. Marble-pillared churches are not Religion. The 
swindling of poor men by learned BLshops is not Religion. Robbing your neighbor 
six days in the week and going to Church on the Seventh is not Religion. Devoting 
a lifetime to gathering pennies is not Religion. Preaching a creed which teaches 
John the Presbyterian to hate James the Catholic, is not Religion. Religion is not 
found in elegant churches or prettily-bound boolcs — much less is it heard from the 
lips of Smooth-speech, the polite preacher, or Sodom-speech, the wrathful preacher. 

— You are religious. I am religious. When God created us he made us so. When 
we are abroad in the fields, on a clear day, in the sunny air, by the waterside, among 



90 CHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF HIS WRITINGS. 

the flowers, we feel our hearts go up to him in thankfulness. On a dark day we sea 
God beyond the leaden clouds. When Death comes to our homes, we trust in Him, 
and in the silence of the death-room — when the one whom we loved is in the cofBn — 
we feel that God is with us. That He did not create us to be miserable. . That His 
brightest rainbows succeed the darkest clouds. That He is the Father of Us All. 

— Do not talk of Religion as of a thing which you can cofiBn in a creed or jail up ia 
a church. God himself — through his Bible of Revelation and through his Bible of 
stars and flowers— tells you that you utter a lie. 

— Wo to the man of creeds who attempts to wrest this Religion from the heart of 
suffering, toiling, hoping JIan ! Wo to the blasphemer, who paints God with a face 
ever angry — a hand ever grasping thunderbolts ! The woe of sin unpardonable de- 
scends upon such a man. 

—Religion, good friends, is simply that confidence in God which teaches the Child 
to trust in its Father. Could you and I go down into the valley where the Lord 
Christ is sitting among his people — even by the lake of Galilee — we would never again 
talk of Religion as a thing of symbols and creeds. 

All of Lippard's writings abound in the love of Christ. Whatever 
subject he undertook to treat he was sure in the course of it to mention 
" The Master," " Adonai," " The Teacher," or " The Poor Man." 

His " Washington and his Generals," though dealing with a modern 
and warlike theme, is full of this. And so are his other Revolutionary 
legends. His " Nazarene" illustrates his most dearly cherished concep- 
tion of Christ as a Reformer. His " Jesus and the Poor" shows how 
our Lord came to relieve distress — to minister to suffering — to pour balm 
upon the bruised heart. His " White Banner" draws a terrible contrast 
between the purity of Christ's religion and the sounding hypocrisy of too 
much religion in the Nineteenth Century ; it shows how the teachings of 
eighteen hundred years ago have been twisted from their original intent, 
and too often made an engine of torture and oppression, instead of a be- 
neficent instrument of " good-will toward men." His Brotherhood of the 
Union, as we have before shown, was founded deep in the Gospel of 
Christ. All that Lippard wrote, talked, or did was so intimately inter- 
woven with this religious faith, that we are almost ready to pronounce it 
the leading trait in his character. We remember, as we write, the wild, 
rapt fervor with which he would occasionally start from his chair and 
repeat that cry of more than mortal agony — " Eloi ! Eloi ! Lama 
Sabachthani !" ^Va/vV-v.-iv; 



Mr. Lippard left Cleveland in the autumn of 1851 to return to Phila- 
delphia to attend the meeting of the Supreme Circle of the Brotherhood. 
Here was a field in which, above all others, he loved to labor, and he 



CONVOCATION OF SUPREME CIRCLE, 1851. 91 

hastened gladly to take his position as the presiding officer. He felt a 
strange elation when, invested with the chaste but beautiful regalia of his 
high office, he stood as the Chief of the Brotherhood — the creation of 
his own glowing brain — to direct and assist it by his counsels and labors. 
He felt on such occasions the grave responsibility of his duties. He was 
serious, earnest, full of work. Those who knew him only as they met 
him in the world outside were always surprised at his solemnity in the 
Circle. He was most rigid in his discipline. He always insisted upon 
perfect order and decorum. Wo be to the Brother who at such times 
ventured any trifling or impertinent remark ! The S. W. invariably met 
him with a prompt and decisive rebuke. When engaged in business he 
stuck to business with a fidelity worthy of the serious commercial gen- 
tlemen in Wall Street. 

The Supreme Circle met Oct. 7th, 1851, at the Franklin House. The 
transactions were highly interesting. 

The S. W. reported progress in a circular, from which we take the 
following : 

" The late Convocation of the Supreme Circle held in Philadelphia, 
Oct. 7th, 1851, was fruitful in good work, of which you will be fully in- 
formed when the Journal is issued. For the present suffice it to say that 
from the Reports and other evidence presented, it appears that the 
Grand Circles of Western New York, Maryland, and Ohio are in a sound 
and prosperous condition ; that, with but few exceptions, the Order has 
vigorously progressed during the past year ; and that, from signs that can 
not be mistaken, the future is bright with hope and promise. The Chiefs 
and Officers of the Supreme Circle, by election and appointment, are as 

follows : 

Geoboe Lippakd, Supreme Washington, Philadelphia, Pa. 

James P. Murphy, " Jefferson, Lockport, N. Y. 

E. A. Marsh " Yxz.\xVan, Rochester, N.Y. 

John H. Klippart " Wayne. Louisville, Stark Co., Ohio. 

B. F. M'CoLLiSTKB " Fulton, Pe7insgrovc, Salem Co., N, J. 

0. L. Drake, " Girard, Freedom, Portage Co., Ohio. 

Orkis Crandall " Scroll Keeper, Yonkers, N. Y. 

E. AV. C. Greene, " JiegisteT, Philadelphia, Pa. 

John Mills, " Treasurer, " " 

Skth Fisher, " Herald, Union Bridge, Carroll Co.. Md. 

H.D.Barron " Marshall, fFaw/fcs/ia, JFuufc. Co., Jfi*. 

Robert J. M'Donnell, .... " Messenger, Wilmington, Del. 

Samuel Champion, " Watcher of the Day, fFa.'j/unston.i?. C. 

George Williams, " Watcher of the Night, 3/arcui 7/oofc, Pa. 

" And the following are the G. E. W.'s elect and initiated for the re- 
spective States : 



92 OFFICEES OF SUPREME CIRCLE AND G. E. W.'s. 

Maryla'nd. — Seth Fisher, Samuel S. Milh, Henry Spilmaa, Sol. Sbeperd, James W. Gorman, 

John H. Wilson, N. Robinson, E. Orrell, T. B. Askew, B. W. Ferguson.f 
Ohio John Ecker,t Benjamin Paine,t B. J. Tice,t D. M. Hazen,t Jacob B. Lingle,t Noah 

Oaator,t Edward Lynde, John H. Klippart, S. D. Dana,t Thomas Alexander,! Michael 

Way,t Charles Pardee,! Simon C. Baker.f Wm. P. Camden.t Lucius P. Brown,t James T. 

Shafer,t 0. L. Drake, A. M'Causland, Fletcher Golden.f Stuart M'Kee,t Joseph Cable.f 

Charles J. Gi£ford,t Henry C. Graves,! P- Mead Benham.t George W. Kelley,t Wm.Smith.f 

J. Q. Lakin,t Alfred Bonney.f Noah Hillf, T. F. Thresher ,t H. Wigand.f M. W. Davis.t A. 

Bailey ,t James Nicholson.f 
Delaware.— Roberi J. M'Donnell, Saxe Gotha Laws.f 

E. New ForA;.— Ben. Price,! R. T. Groshon,t Orrin Crandall, J. M. Reveire. 
W. New York.— 3. P. Murphy, E. A. Marsh, H. B. Waterman, Wm. H. Pratt, H. D. Barron, 

James M. Cavan. 
Kentucky.— Wm. D. Coryell,t J. H. Burton.t W. 0. Phillips.t 
New Jersey — B. F. M'CoUister, A, G. Alston, M. N. Dubois, J. L. Carragan, John G. Wester- 

feld,t P. H. Mulford, George L. Toy. 
Connecticut. — R. C. Brown. 

Rhode Island H. H. Wildman.f Wm. MacFarlane.f 

Massachusetts. — E dward Caulkins.f 

Maine — Win. Somerby.t 

Indiana. — Jacob Benedict,! John Curtis,! George W. Hill. 

Illinois — James Reynoldi^.f 

Michigan 0. P. Strobridge,t W. P. Beach.f 

Tennessee J. M. Pannell,t C. J. Dickesson,t Napier Wilson.t 

Iowa. — John P. Wilkinson.f 

Wisconsin. — A. E. Elmcre.f N. H. Hemiup.f 

Arkansas.— 3. W. Woodward.f 

District of Columbia. — Thomas Kelly ,t Samuel Champion. 

Virginia. — Thomas M. Smith,! Vance Bell, John E. Smith, Israel G. Hetterley, George W. 

L. Bickley, Charles A. Haller, Samuel K. Taylor.f Amos Ball,t James H. Gilmore,t Lewis 

Fry.t 
P^nnsj/foajwa.— Franklin L. Crane,t H. W. Miller, M. G. Henderson ,t James M. Stevens, 

William Garretson,t Abel Humphreys,! M. G. Shoemaker, H. Zahm.t E. W. C. Greene, John 

Mills, H. M. Flint,t George Williams, William Smith, T. R. Davis.f 

General Note. — Brothers marked ihus t are Brothers elect, alUiough not initiated. 7%ey can 
cmnplete their initiation without coming to Philadelphia by corresponding with the S. W. — Brother 
Kelly, of Washington, D. C, a noble and true man, has died, and been buried with the rites of the Or- 
der, since Oct. 7th." 

Our author was heartily welcomed back to Philadelphia by his numer- 
ous friends. Every kindness was pressed upon him. The only thing 
that embittered his stay in the city was the sad — sad — recollection of his 
lost wife, children, and sister. The very sight of the city sickened him, 
and still for him it had a strange fascination. He used often to speak 
of leaving it, and yet was loth to take the step. 

Philadelphia, though bereft of nearly all living things that could make 
life happy, was still dear to him at times for the sweet, melancholy recol- 
lections of what his earlier days had been. 

He passed much of his time, as we have intimated, in converse with 



REVISITS THE WEST. 93 

his many friends and admirers. He, however, found time to pursue the 
composition of his last work, " The Upper Ten and Lower Million." 
He had cherished the plan of that romance for three years, and had, 
from time to time, worked it out. He did not attack his literary tasks, 
however, with the same vigor that he brought to his former works. He 
had by this time lost much of his relish for writing. Alas ! he had found 
out the terrible truth that there was little worth writing — worth living — for. 
The old spirit, the old ambition, the old poetical vehemence were want- 
ing. He now wrote more for bread than for fame. We do not under- 
rate, however, his " Upper Ten and Lower Million." It contains much 
of that intense humanity, and was marked throughout by that strong ner- 
vous diction, which characterize all his writings. 



He soon became uneasy, tired of Philadelphia, and remembering the 
many pleasant hours he had spent with his friends in Cleveland, deter- 
mined to repeat his visit to that place. He therefore left Philadelphia 
in the spring of 1852, by way of Central Pennsylvania, to fulfill an ap- 
pointment which he had made by invitation to lecture before a college at 
Chambersburgh. The effort was received with much enthusiasm. Lip- 
pard, though little susceptible to flattery, felt highly complimented by his 
reception, which was all the more agreeable because at that time he was 
gradually withdrawing from public life. 

He had no well-defined purpose that we are aware of in visiting 
Cleveland a second time. He had, perhaps, a sort of vague design of 
making that place his home for the rest of his life. But we doubt 
whether he would ever have been contented to pitch his tent permanently 
anywhere. There was no longer " a home" for him. He spent his 
time during this visit much as he did upon the former one. He attended 
to the correspondence of the Order, enjoyed the society of his friends, 
and whiled away the awkward hours in reading. Upon several Sabbath 
evenings he lectured in a public hall, upon subjects connected with the 
character and mission of Christ. His audiences were, as usual, large, 
and comprised much of the intelligence of the <fity. 

About this time he conceived the plan of starting a weekly newspaper 
in connection with a friend. It was to be called " The People's Paper," 
and was projected to carry out the doctrines of the Brotherhood, while 
it should aim to make a name in literary matters. Lippard intended to 
make it the field of his future authorship, and would have contributed a 
large manuscript novel then in his possession, giving the first installment 



9i VISITS FREDERICKSBUEGH, TA., BY INVITATION. 

with the first number. The project met with much favor. The press 
in various parts of the country spoke of it very kindly. Assurances of 
support came in from distant points where Mr. Lippard, until then, never 
dreamed that he had any friends. 

The paper would, without question, have been successful. Lippard 
began to look fondly forward to it as the sphere of a renewed ambition. 
Before his plans were matured, however, he returned to Philadelphia to 
attend the annual meeting of the Supreme Circle for 1852, where his 
presence was imperatively needed. He went -via Pittsburgh, and lee* 
tured in several towns in Pennsylvania on the route. He confidently 
expected to go back to Cleveland after the adjournment of the Supreme 
Circle, but one business and another delayed him in Philadelphia. All 
decisive action with regard to the paper was therefore postponed, and, 
at last, the scheme was quietly allowed to fall through. 



In the spring of 1852 Mr. Lippard received an invitation to deliver a 
lecture before an Odd Fellows' Lodge in Fredericksburgh, Virginia. It 
was an unexpected and grateful compliment to his reputation as an author 
and man, and he gladly responded to it. In company with one of his 
oldest and truest friends, Heman Burr, he went to Richmond, by way of 
Washington. It was the first, last, and only time that he visited the 
South. 

His reception in the " Old Dominion" was very flattering. He met 
with friends upon every side. The lecture was delivered to a large and 
intelligent audience in the Odd Fellows' Hall, and gave the greatest satis- 
faction. He also, upon a subsequent evening, pronounced his oration 
upon Benedict Arnold in that city. 

During his stay in Fredericksburgh an incident occurred which displays 
Lippard's characteristic boldness and decision of character. It seems that 
some one not very favorable to Lippard hunted over one of his books and 
found a passage reflecting strongly upon American slavery. This he 
whispered into the ears of the Fredericksburghers, who, like all other 
Southerners, are, of course, sensitive upon the subject of the " Patriarch- 
al Institution." 

A report of this coming to the ears of Lippard, he immediately con- 
ceived that some insidious attempt was being made to prejudice his kind 
hosts against him. His whole life had been a constant war against 
calumny, vituperation — all the phases of personal and literary hostility — • 
and he was not long in determining how to act. 



A TOAST TO THE REVOLVING PISTOL. 95 

He was invited to attend a supper given in bis honor by the Odd Fel- 
lows. He went. The entertainment was magnificent and all passed off 
delightfully. No one could detect in Lippard's freedom and urbanity of 
manner any trace of what was busy at the bottom of his brain. Pres- 
ently the time for toasts came round, and the guest of the evening was 
duly honored. He rose, returned the compliment in a neat speech, and 
closed with a sentiment something in the following words (we repeat as 
we have heard it) : 

" Here's to the revolving pistol. The best antidote to a Northern 
scoundrel who meddles with the opinions of a Southern gentleman upon 
slavery while traveling in the North ; and an equally good course of 
treatment for a Southern blackguard who interferes with the sentiments 
of a Northerner while the guest of the South." 

This, uttered in a deep, earnest tone, with a flashing eye, produced a 
sensation at the festive board. A few who had heard the whispered ru- 
mors to which we have alluded understood the mysterious toast. The 
others " stared at each other in a wild surprise" and squinted anxiously 
at the speaker, who sat down with his usual self-possession and resumed 
the social chat as if nothing had occurred. 

Suffice it to say that nobody poked his nose into Lippard's anti-slaverv 
opinions after that. It was the last he heard of his alleged Abolition- 
ism during his stay. 

Lippard hated scarcely any thing so much as impertinence or unfair- 
ness in criticism. His acts and works were continually before the pub- 
lic, and were the legitimate subject of examination. Lippard never 
objected to censure if it were laid on with an honest purpose. 
He knew his faults and freely owned them. He was his own severest 
critic. But what he " execrated, spit upon, and defied," as a certain dis- 
tinguished politician said of a certain platform, was the mean, mole-eyed, 
burrowing system of abuse, under the name of criticism, to which he was 
subjected. It was certainly ungenerous to condemn Lippard the author 
simply because Lippard the man chose to sport long hair and a rolling 
collar ; and yet it is v:onderful how much those little personal eccentrici- 
ties counted against him in the little minds of some very little people. 
Now we don't like such whims of dress in the abstract, but we willing- 
ly waive our notions in the case of Lippard, who overbalanced them by 
so many mental attractions. It was no less certainly pedantic aud con- 
temptible to deny genius to Lippard, as some critics did with "meat- 
axe" ferocity, because the man had a style of his own — as natural to him 
as amsic to birds or odor to flowers. He was a man above all others to 



96 lippaed's style. 

be taken as he was found— to be estimated by his intrinsic qualities — 
not to be judged by the pedagogues' standard of excellence. It is queer 
— really it is queer — how many people will forgive the want of brains 
in a book, but how few will ever pardon a slip-shod sentence or a mis- 
placed comma. He was nervously impatient of all such paltry microsco- 
pic judgment, and never missed a chance to retaliate upon it with unmiti- 
gated scorn and contempt. 



A great deal has been objected to Lippard's style of writing. We ap- 
proach this subject not to meet any prevailing wholesale objection, for 
none such now exists. The critics, before Mr. Lippard's decease, grad- 
ually became accustomed to the peculiarities of his style. Though they 
never pardoned him his so-called transgressions against the canons of 
rhetoric, they suspended their ferocity by degrees in deference to the 
undoubted genius which they could not wholly deny to his writings. 
But there may be some persons who have been frightened away from him 
by these critical spooks and bugbears. For such we have a word. 

Lippard's style was original. All writers of genius are more or less 
distinguished by styles of their own. A man may learn much — very 
much — from the accepted models of style — Johnson, Addison, Irving, 
etc. No well-educated man is unacquainted with one or all of these ; 
and any man, whatever his natural endowments, can not but be benefited 
by their acquaintance. This, of course. But when a man happens to be 
born with an individuality throbbing in his brain, burning at his heart, as 
Lippard was, how, in the name of common sense, can we ask him to cast 
himself in the mold of the old elegant stylists of literature ? Lippard's 
mission was not to sit in high judgment upon other literary men, like that 
of Johnson ; nor was it, like Addison, to paint with soft pencil the grace- 
ful amenities of life ; nor, with Irving, to revive the quaint humors and 
oddities of Knickerbocker times. 

He was called by Nature for a far different purpose. It was his busi- 
ness to attack social wrongs, to drag away purple garments and expose 
to our shivering gaze the rottenness of vice — to take tyranny by the throat 
and strangle it to death. It was no dainty task. It was not to be 
approached with the mincing step and mouthing compliments of a carpet 
knight. He needed weapons for the work, and he found them without 
hunting. The same head which furnished the ideas furnished just the very 
words to print them in. The idea was the sovereign ; the word but sub- 
ject. He sat down to paper because he had something to say. He wrote 
from his fullness — not from his emptiness. His mind was a reservoir—- 



VAULTS OF THE CATACOMBS. 97 

always running over. He did not have to pump it full — by the slow 
cudgeling of the brain — before others could be supplied. His words 
were only the grooves and channels in which his thoughts found their 
way to the great popular heart — not the fertilizing streams themselves. 

His style, though he only used it and dismissed it as a mere tool to 
work with, is still redolent of beauty — as styles— and nothing else. We 
illustrate with a few passages, picked almost at random, from his writings. 
Is not this a fine piece of word-painting? 

VAULTS OF THE CATACOMBS. 

A City of the Dead, sunken far beneath the feet of millions! 

While Rome palpitates on the surface, like the great heart of the Living World, 
here, beneath the throbs of that voluptuous heart, lies the skeleton-heart of a World of 
Shadows. Above smiles Rome, with St. Peter's on her breast — below, brood the Cata- 
combs, the Ghostly Rome — with the dead of eighteen centuries sleeping in the shadows. 

It is a fearful thing to walk here by the light of a lamp, which grows dim and palo 
as it encounters the charnel breath of the dead ages. To leave the gay city, whose 
pavement stones beat with the tread of a thousand and a hundred thousand feet, and, 
lamp in hand, pass through the mouth of this great cavern into a Ghostly World — 
have you the courage ? Above you the gorgeous sky of Italy ; around you vines and 
blossoms, nothing but vines and blossoms wherever you turn your gaze; in the dis- 
tance the great Colosseum, that silent Monarch of the dead centuries, and yonder 
the dome of St. Peter's rising into Heaven, so isolated in its awful glory — can you 
leave all this, and dive with me into Another World ? 

Will you for a little while, leave the Rome of the Nineteenth Century, and descend 
with me those steps of eighteen hundred years, which end at last at the foot of a Cross, 
and near a Holy Sepulcher ? Take the lamp — cast one glance over the grand and beau- 
tiful Rome — inhale one breath of Paradise from this voluptuous Italian atmosphere — 
we pass into the darkness through this hill-side crevice — we are in another world. 
Listen ! Not a sound ; not even the echo of a sound. You never felt the meaning 
of the word Silence before. Listen once again, not with your cars, but with your 
heart. Hark ! The voices of the dead ages are speaking to j'our Soul ; not voices 
like the thunder, nor voices like the whirlwind's shout, but those " still, small voices," 
in whose tones you may also hear the voice of God. 

It was a beautiful thing to see a wayworn and aged man stand up aloue in the 
center of a Cavern, whose roof, vast and broken, resembled a leaden sky. 

And near his feet, as he stood alone upon the summit of a rock, which rose from 
the shadows, crouched a little child, attired in garments of purple, his mild and 
lustrous eyes iixed yearningly upon the old man's face ; his hands, small and whit« 
and beautiful as marble, gently uplifted, as if in the act of prayer. 

The old man was not altogether alone. True, he seemed alone, as, raised upon the 
rock, the dim light shone over his aged face, while all the rest of the vast cavern wa8 
Avrapt in brooding .shadow. But a hundred hearts were beating there, beneath that 
gloomy roof of rock. A hundred forms were kneeling there, upon that floor of stone. A 
hundred voices rose at once, and in one chorus, from that place of shadow, tc-tho e^ir 
T)f God. 

7 



98 THE VALLEY OF THE BRANDY WINE. 

There is a rhythmical beauty about this little thing, the closing para- 
graph of " The Globe, the Sun, and Rosy Cross" in the story of " Adonai," in 
"The White Banner" — from which the foregoing extracts are also taken : 

And as the Face of the Master shone from the mountain top upon the kneeling 
throng — that throng composed of the Seers and Prophets and Believers of all ages — • 
Ilis hand was outstretched and this symbol was seen in the sky, hovering above the 
American Continent— 

A dark globe, a white cross, and risi?ig sun — the dark globe tinted with golden 
rays, and the white cross blushing in the rosy light. 

And this Song arose — 

" Rejoice ! A Spirit moves the globe, and its pulsations echo in the hearts of all 
true men ! 

" Rejoice ! They have killed him whom we loved — they have sealed his grave 
— but rejoice, for now we know that he is risen indeed. 

" Man, torn and suffering, lift thy head. 

" Lift thy head, for lo ! a Face approaches and a Hand is beckoning. 

" Rejoice! The Master comes." 

Washington sleeps in Mount Vernon, and Adonai in the Catacombs, but 

The globe, the cross, and sun .are yet in the sky, and the globe is bright, and the 
cross is rosy, with the fast coming Day 

Lippard looked upon scenery, especially when it was hallowed by 
Revolutionary memory, with the eye of an artist. 

Gaze along this meadow, embosomed in the foliage of a lovely valley, gemmed with 
orchards and sparkling with a stream of clear, cold water. There is sunshine upon 
the tops of the trees and shadow all around. From clusters of forest trees gray stone 
walls are visible — the walls of peaceful homes, protected by the solitude of this world- 
bidden valley. Is it not one of those scenes which speak to the soul of quiet, peace, 
unutterable peace, and mock the petty greatness of wealth, the swelling vanity of am- 
bition, to scorn ? 

And this peaceful valley, secluded from the world, shut up in its own loveliness, 
will soon be rich in graves. There will be cold faces in the light of a setting sun ; 
the grass will be wet with a bloody rain ; the stream crimson. And this will be ere 
the blossoms on yonder trees have ripened into fruit. 

For it is the valley of the BRANnyvfiNS. 

There is a house of dark-gray stone standing in a sort of rural majesty at the east- 
ern extremity of a smooth, green lawn. To the north and to the south, from this 
mansion, spread the tenements of a quiet town, whose gables peep from gardens and 
orchard trees. Upon the roof of the stone mansion lingers the last ray of the .Tuno 
Bun, and not a breeze is there to shake the white blossoms from the boughs or stir into 
motion the smooth verdure of the lawn. 

Ere these trees are touched by winter, yes, as they are clad in the rainbows of 
autumn, there ynll be seme hundreds of dead bodies stretched in horrible confusion 
over this lawn in all the grotesque shapes of sudden and violent death. 

For the mansion is Chew's House, and the village is called Germantotvn. 

The same tender love of nature discloses itself in the following. 
There is some of Lippard's sly, quaint humor about it, too. 



A PLEASANT COUNTKY SCEKE. 99 

tTndcf an .arbor fresh -witli vines and fragrant with flowers sat Peter Dorfner, his 
J-otund form resting in a stout oaken chair. It was a very pleasant thing to note the 
contrast between his red cheeks and white beard and the deep green of the leaves, the 
varied tints of the flowers. Before him was placed a table of unpainted oak, on 
which sundry suspicious bottles stood like the sentinels of the scene ; and half-closing 
his eyes, with his limbs resting on a bench, old Peter resigned himself to the calm 
delights of rum and tobacco. 

It was a pleasant arbor, standing at one end of the garden, near the farm house, 
whose closed doors and windows looked black and desolate beneath the cheerful light 
of the summer sun. 

It must be confessed that old Peter was surrounded by all the delights that can 
render a man peaceful with himself and the world. Lulled by the unceasing mur- 
mur of the bees, who sung their songs among the flowers, with the fragrance of new- 
mown hay stealing gently over the fields, Peter Dorfner, with his red checks and 
Bnowy beard, his capacious form spreading lazily in the oaken chair, looked altogether •> 
like a picture of some corpulent satyr of Grecian story clad in brown cloth, ynth a 
pipe in its mouth aud a bottle of rum near its hand. Or, in case this comparison 
should seem unjust, we might compare h:ra to some hermit of the middle ages, who, 
disgusted with the vanity of the world, had retired to some secluded forest and sworn 
a solemn oath to devote himself forever to fatness and sleep, those cardinal duties of 
the monks of old. 

Beyond the garden, amid whose pl.mts and fiowei*9 tlie arbor rose, a green field 
smiled in the June sunbeams, and stretched to the south and west in gentle undula- 
tions until it was bounded by the summer woods. Strong men, with arms bare and 
Bcytlie in hand, toiled among the grass, scattering swarths of fragrant hay as they 
liurricd along. Tired cattle were grouped in the shade on the verge of the wood ; 
ftldermanic oxen aud matronly cows, snufSng the scent of the new-mown hay, from 
which they were separated by that kind of rural architecture known in grave an- 
Jials as " Worm Fence." Now and then the sound of the whetstone applied to the 
scythe came merrily over the fields, mingled with the lowing of cattle and the sub» 
dued murmur of the hidden stream. 

Summer was upon the scene in all the freshness and beauty of June. There was a 
serene sky, only varied by p.assing clouds, who turned their white bosoms to the sun 
and floated slowly over the woods. There was a drowsy fragrance in the very air. a 
fullness of intoxicating odors; and the bees among the flowers, the lowing cattle 
grouped in the shadows, the clang of the scythe, and the indistinct sound of the 
wood-hidden AVissahikon, formed the music of the scene — a very lulling music alto- 
gether, full of summer and voluptuous as June. 

But the old farm-house looked sad and deserted. There were green vines trailing 
about its stoop roof, and flinging their leaves, their flowers, from the very point of 
the high gable ; the chestnut-tree was glorious with verdure, but the doors of tlie farm- 
house, the closed shutters, gave it a lonely and desolate appearance. 

Secluded in the arbor, his only companions the pipe and the bottle, Peter Dorfner 
took his ease, and winked sleepily at care, as though there was never a thing like 
trouble in the world. 

Two years have passed since we behold hira last, two years full of interest and in- 
cident, and the face of Peter discloses more wrinkles about the eyes, more fatness ia 
the cheeks, a .sublimcr rotundity about the form. Brown waistcoat loosened, hose 



100 THE WISSAIIIKON, 

ungartered, and cravat thrown aside, Peter languidly smoked his pipe and seemed 
hesitating for a moment ere he entered the domains of that ancient empire known to 
philosophers and poets as the Land of Nod. 

Lippard takes almost as many pictures of the Wissahikon as there are 
points of view. But the reader is never tired with them. Here is a bit 
of quiet penciling : 

THK WISSAHIKON. 

It is a poem of everlasting beauty — a dream of magnificence — the world-hidden, 
wood-embowered Wissahikon. Its pure waters break forever in ripples of silver 
around the base of colossal rocks, or sweep murmuringly on over beds of pebbled 
flints, or spread into calm and mirror-like lakes, with shores of verdure, surmounted 
by green hills, rolling away in waves of forest trees, or spreading quietly in the fierce 
light of the summer sun, with the tired cattle grouped beneath the lofty oaks. 

It is a poem of beauty — where the breeze mourns its anthem through the tall 
pines ; where the silver waters send up their voices of joy ; where calmness, and quiet, 
and intense solitude awe the soul and fill the heart with bright thoughts and golden 
dreams woven in the luxury of the summer hour. 

From the moment your eyes first drink in the gladness of its waters as they pour 
in to the Schuylkill, seven miles from Pliiladelphia, until you behold it winding its 
thread of silver along the meadows of Whitemarsh, many miles above, it is all beauty, 
all dream, all magnificence. 

It breaks on your eye, pouring into the Schuylkill, a calm lake with an ancient 
and picturesque mill* in the foreground. A calm lake, buried in the depths of tow- 
ering steeps that rise almost perpendicularly on either side, casting a shadow of gloom 
over the water, while every steep is green with brushwood, every rocky cleft magnif- 
icent with the towering oak, the somber pine, or the leafy chestnut. 

This glen is passed ; then you behold hilly shores, sloping away to the south in 
pleasant undulations, while on the north arise frowning steeps. Then your mind ia 
awed by tremendous hills on either side, creating one immense solitude ; rugged 
steeps — all precipice and perpendicular rock — covered and crowded with giant pines, 
and then calm and rippleless lakes, shadowy glens, deep ravines, and twilight dells 
of strange and dreamy beauty. 

There is, in sooth, a stamp of strange and dreamy beauty impressed upon every rip- 
ple of the Wissahikon, every grassy bank extending greenly along its waters, on every 
forest-tree towering beside its shores. 

On the calm summer's day, when the sun is declining in the west, you may look 
from the height of some gray, rugged steep, down upon the depths of the world-hid- 
den waters. Wild legends wander across your fancy as you gaze; every scene around 
you seems but the fitting location for a wild and dreamy tradition, every rock bears 
its own time-story, every nook of the wild-wood has its tale of the ancient days. 
The waters, deep, calm, and well-like, buried amid overhanging hills, have a strange 
and mysterious clearness. The long shadows of the hills, broken by golden belts of 
sunshine, clothe the waters in sable and gold, in glitter and in shadow. All around 
is quiet and still ; silence seems to have assumed a positive existence amid these val- 
leys of romance and of dreams. 

* Formerly Vanduring's, now Robinson's, mUL 



THE BATTLE EVE. THE RED CROSS IN PHILADELPHIA. 101 

In a different vein from any of these are the opening sentences of 
" Washington and his Generals." 

THE BATTLE EVE. 

THE RED CROSS IN PHILADELPHIA. 

Toll — toll— toll ! The State House bell, that once rung the birthday of Freedom, 
now tolled its knell. 

It was a sad day for Philadelphia, a sad day for the nation, when the pomp of 
British banners and the gleam of British arms were in her streets and along her ave- 
nues; when, as far as eye could reach, was seen the long array of glaring red coats, 
with the sunbeams of a clear September day falling on helm and cuirass, shining like 
burnished gold. 

It was a sad and gloomy day for the nation when the Congress was forced to flee 
the old provincial town of William Penn, when the Tories paradctl the streets with 
loud hurrahs, with the British lion waving overhead, wliile the Whigs hung their 
heads in shame and in despair. 

True, the day was calm and bright overhead ; true, the sky was clear, and the nipping 
air of autumn gave freshness to the mind and bloom to the cheek ; true it was, the city 
was all alive with the glitter of processions and the passing to and fro of vast crowds 
of people ; but the processions were a dishonor to our soil, the crowds hurried to and 
fro to gaze upon the living monuments of the defeat of Brandywine — the armed and 
arrogant British legions thronging the streets of Philadelphia. 

They came marching along in front of the old State House on their way to the bar- 
racks in the Northern Liberties. The scene was full of strange and startling inter- 
est. The roofs of the State House arose clearly in the autumn air, each peak and 
cornice, each gable-end and corner, shone in full and distinct outline, with the trees 
of Independence Square towering greenly in the rear of the fabric, while up into the 
clear sky arose the State House steeple, with its solemn bell of independence, that, but 
a year ago, sent forth the news of liberty to all the land, swinging a welcome to the 
British host — a welcome that sounded like the funeral knell of new-world freedom. 
The columns of the army were passing in front of Independence Hall. Along Chest- 
nut Street, as far as the eye could see, shone the glittering array of sword and bayo- 
net, with the bright sunshine falling over the stout forms of the Briti.sh troopers, 
mounted on gallant war steeds, and blazing with burnished cuirass and polished helm, 
while banner and pennon waived gayly overhead. There, treading the streets in all 
the flush of victory, were the regiments of British infantry, with tlic one bold front 
of their crimson attire flashing in the light, with their baj'oncts rising overhead like 
a forest of steel, and with marks of Brandywine written on many a whiskered face 
and burly chest. 

At their head, mounted on a gallant steed, with the lordlings of his staff around 
him, rode a tall and athletic man, with a sinewy frame, and a calm, placid face, 
wearing an even smile and quiet look, seen from beneath the shadow of his plumed 
chapeau, while his gaudy attire of crimson, with epaulettes of gold on either shoulder, 
announced Lord Cornwallis, the second general of the invading army. 

And as the General glanced around, fixing his eye proudly upon the British ban- 
ner waving from the State House steeple, as his glance was met by (he windows of 
Independence Hall decorated by the fl.igs of the British King, a proud gleam lit up 
his calm, blue eye ; and with the tliought of Brandywine, came a vision of thcfaturo 



102 ' THE BIBLE LEGEND OF THE WISSAHIKON. 

speaking eloquently of provinces subjugated, rebels overthrown, and liberties crushed. 
And then peals of music uttered by a hundred bands filled the street and startled 
the silence of the State House avenues, swelling up to the heavens with notes of joy, 
the roll of drum, the shriek of bugle, and the clash of cymbal mingling in grand, 
chorus. The banners waved more proudly overhead, the spears, the bayonets, and 
helmets shone brighter in the light, and between the peals of music the loud huzzas of 
the crowd blackening the sidewalks, looking from the windows, and clinging to the 
trees, broke gladly upon the air. 

Toll— toll— toll ! The solemn notes of Independence bell heralded with an iron 
tongue the entrance of the invaders into the city ; the possession of Philadelphia by 
the British. 

It was a grand sight to see ; the windows crowded with the forms of beauty, wav- 
ing scarfs in the air, aged matrons lifting little children on high, who clapped their 
hands with glee as they beheld the glimmer of arms and the glitter of steel, the 
streets below all crimson with British uniform, all music and all joy, the sidewalks 
blackened by crowds of servile Tories who shouted till their loyal throats were tired, 
" Long life to King George; confusion to Washington, and death to the rebels." 

They trooped through the streets of Philadelphia on the 26th of September, 1777 ; 
just fifteen days after the battle-day of Brandywine they took possession with all the 
pomp of victory ; and as the shades of twilight sank down over the town, they march- 
ed proudly into their barracks in the Northern Liberties. 

How many things will you find in our literature more truly graphic 
than 

THE BIBLE LEGEND OF THE WISSAHIKON. 

It was here in these wilds of the Wissahikon, on the day of the battle, as the noon- 
day sun came shining through the thickly-clustered leaves, that two men met in 
deadly combat. They grappled in deadly conflict near a rock that rose — like the huge 
wreck of some primeval world — at least one hundred feet above the dark waters of 
the Wissahikon. 

That man with the dark brow and the darker gray eye flashing with deadly light, 
with the muscular form clad in the blue hunting-frock of the Revolution, is a Con- 
tinental named Warner. His brother was murdered the other night at the Massacre 
of Paoli. That other man, with long, black hair drooping along his cadaverous face, 
is clad in the half-military costume of a Tory refugee. That is the murderer of Paoli, 
named Dabney. 

They had met there in the woods by accident, and now they fought, not Avith sword 
or rifle, but with long and deadly hunting-knives that flash in the light as they go 
turning, and twining, and twisting over the green sward. 

At last the Tory was down. Down on the green sward with the knee of the Con- 
tinental upon his breast — that upraised knife quivering in the light — that dark-gray 
eye flashing death into his face. 

" Quarter — I yield !" gasped the Tory, as the knee was pressed upon his breast — 
" Sparc me — I yield !" 

" My brother !" said the Patriot soldier, in that low, deep tone of deadly hate — - 
" My brother cried for ' quarter' on the night of Paoli, and even as he clung to your 
knees you struck that knife into his heart ! Oh, I will give you the quarter of Paoli !" 

And his hand was raised for the blow, and his teeth were clenched in deadly hate. 



THE BIBLE LEGEND OF THE W1S3AHIK0N. 103 

He paused for a moment and then pinioned the Tory's arms, and with one rapid stride 
dragged him to the verge of the rock and held him quivering over the abyss. 

" Mercy !" gasped the Tory, turning Wack and ashy by turns as that awful gulf 
yawned below. " Mercy ! 1 have a wife — a child — spare me !" 

Then the Continental, with his muscular strength gathered for the effort, shook the 
murderer once more over the abyss, and then hissed this bitter sneer between hid 
teeth : 

" My brother had a wife and two children. The morning after the night of Paoli 
that wife was a widow, those children were orphans ! Wouldn't you like to go and 
beg your life of that widow and her children ?"' 

This proj)orial, made by the Continental in the mere mockery of hate, was taken in 
serious earnest by the horror-stricken Tory. lie begged to be taken to the widow and 
her children to have the pitiful privilege of begging his life. After a moment's seri- 
ous thought the patriot soldier consented ; he bound the Tory's arms yet tighter, 
placed him on the rock again — led him up to the woods. A quiet cottage, embosomed 
among trees, broke on their eyes. 

They entered that cottage. There, beside the desolate hearth-stone, sat the widow 
and her children. She sat there a matronly woman of thirty years, with a face faded 
by care, a deep, dark eye, and long, black hair hanging in disheveled llakes about 
her shoulders. 

On one side Avas a dark-haired boy of some six years ; on the other a little girl one 
year younger, with light hair and blue eyes. The Bible — an old and venerable vol- 
ume — lay open on that mother's knee. 

And then that pale-faced Tory flung himself upon his knees, confessed that he had 
butchered her husband on the night of Paoli, but begged his life at her hands. 

" Spare me for the sake of my wife — my child !" 

He had expected that his pitiful moan wculd touch the widow's heart— but not one 
relenting gleam softened her pale face. 

" The Lord shall judge between us," she said in a cold, icy tone that froze the 
murderer's heart. " Look ! the Bible lays open upon my knee. I will close that 
volume, and then this boy shall open it and place his finger at random upon a line, 
and by that line you shall live or die." 

This was a strange proposal, made in full faith of a wild and dark superstition of 
the olden time. 

For a moment the Tory kneeling there, livid as ashes, was wrapt in thought. Then 
in a faltering voice he signified his consent. 

Raising her dark eyes to Heaven, the mother prayed the Great Father to direct the 
finger of her son ; she closed the Bible ; she handed it to that boy, whose young cheek 
reddened with loathing as he gazed upon his father's murderer. 

He took the Bible — opened its holy pages at random — placed his finger on a verse. 

Then there was silence. 

Then that Continental soldier, who had sworn to avenge his brother's death, stood 
there witli dilating eyes and parted lips. 

Then the culprit kneeling on the floor, with a face like discolored clay, felt his heart 
leap to his throat. 

Then in a clear, bold voice the widow read this line from the Old Testamentr— it was 
short, yet terrible : 

" Ta.vT Man- shall die !" 

k 



104 THE BIBLE LEGEND OF THE WISSAHIKON. 

Look ! The brother springs forward to plunge a knife into the murderer's heart, 
but the Tory, pinioned as he is, clings to the widow's knees. He begs that one more 
trial may be made by the little girl, that child of five years, with golden hair and 
laughing eyes. 

The widow consents ; there is an awful pause. 

AVith a smile in her eye, without knowing what she does, that little girl opens the 
Bible as it lays on her mother's knee — she turns her laughing face away — she places 
her finger upon a line. 

That awful silence grows deeper. 

The deep-drawn breath of the brother, the broken gasps of the murderer, alone 
disturb the silence. The widow and dark-eyed boy are breathless. 

That little girl, unconscious as she was, caught a feeling of awe from the horror of 
the countenances around her, and stood breathless, her face turned aside, her tiny 
fingers resting on that line of life or death. 

At last gathering courage the widow bent her eyes to the page and read. It was a 
line from the New Testament : 

" Love your enemies." 

Ah ! that moment was sublime ! 

Oh ! awful Book of God, in whose dread pages we see Job talking face to face with 
Jehovah, or Jesus waiting by Samaria's well or wandering by the waves of dark 
Galilee. Oh ! awful Book, shining to-night, as I speak, the light of that widow's 
home, the glory of that mechanic's shop^shining where the world comes not, to look 
on the last night of the convict in his cell, lightening the way to God even over that 
dread gibbet. Oh ! Book of terrible majesty and child-like love, of sublimity that 
crushes the soul into awe, of beauty that melts the heart with rapture, you never 
shone more strangely beautiful than there, in the lonely cot of the Wissahikon, when 
you saved that murderer's life ! 

For — need I tell you .' — that murderer's life was saved ! That widow recognized 
the finger of God — even the stern brother was awed into silence. 

The murderer went his way. 

Now look ye, how wonderful are the ways of Heaven ! 

That very night, as the widow sat by her lonely hearth — her orphans by her side — 
sat there with crushed heart and hot eyeballs, thinking of her husband who now lay 
moldering on the blood-drenched sod of Paoli, there was a tap at the door. 

She opened the door; and — that husband living, though covered with many wounds, 
was in her arms ! 

He had fallen at Paoli — but not in death. He was alive ; his wife lay panting on 
his breast. 

That night there was prayer in that wood-embowered cot of the Wissahikon. 

LipparJ had a profound reverence for those noble Preachers of the 
Gospel who carried their religion into the battle-field, and who not only 
ministered consolation to dying soldiers, but could wield a stout sword in 
their country's defense : 

THE PREACHER-GENERAL. 

It was a beautiful picture, that quaint old country church, with its rustic steeple 



THE PREACHER-GENERAL. 105 

and gray walls, nestling there in the center of a green valley, with the blue sky abovo 
and a grass-grown graveyard all around it. 

It was indeed a fine old church that Chapel of St. John, and in the quietude of the 
Eummer noon, when not a cloud marred the surface of the heavens, not a breeze ruffled 
the repose of the graveyard grass. It seemed like a place where holy men might pray 
and praise, without an earthly care, a worldly thought. 

The valley itself was beautiful, one of the fairest of the green valleys of the Old 
Dominion. A slope of meadow dotted with trees, a stream of clear, cold water winding 
along its verge under the shadow of gray rocks ; to the east a waving mass of wood- 
land ; to the west a chain of rolling hills, with the blue tops of the AUeghanies seen 
far away. Was it not a lovely valley, with the quaint old church smiling in its lap 
like a Pilgrim who, having journeyed afar, came hero to rest for a while, amid green 
fields and swelling hills .' 

It was a Sabbath noon, in the dark time of the Revolution. Fear was abroad in 
the land, yet here to the good old church came young and old, rich and poor, to listen 
to the words of life and break the bread of God. 

Yonder, under the rude shed, you may see the wagon of the farmer and the car- 
riage of the rich man, or looking along this line of trees you may behold tlie saddled 
horses waiting for their masters. All is silent without the church ; a deep solemnity 
rests upon the Sabbath hour. 

Within — ah ! here is indeed an impressive spectacle. Through the deep-sillcd win- 
dows pours the noonday sun, softened by the foliage of trees. Above is the dark ceiling 
supported by heavy rafters ; yonder the altar, with the cross and sacred letters — I. 
H. S. — gleaming in the light; and all around you behold the earnest faces of the 
crowded assemblage. 

The prayers have been said — those prayers of the Episcopal Church which, gathered 
from the Book of God, flow forever in a fountain of everlasting beauty in ten thousand 
hearts — the prayers have been said, the hymn-notes have died aw.ay, and now every 
voice is hushed, every face is stamped witb a marble stillness. 

A few moments pass, and then behold this picture : 

Old men and young maidens are kneeling around the altar — yes, the forms of robust 
manhood and mature womanhood are prostrate there. Along the railing, which de- 
scribes a crescent around the altar, they throng with heads bent low and hands clasped 
fervently. 

They are about to drink the Wine of the Redeemer — to eat the Bread of God. 

Is it not a lovely scene ? The white hairs of the old men, the brown tresses of the 
young girls, the sun-burnt visages of those well-formed young men, the calm faces of 
the matrons, all touched by the flitting sunbeam. 

Look ! amid that tlirong a dusty negro kneels, his swarthy visage seen amid the pale 
faces of his white brethren. 

All is silent in tlie churcli. Those who do not come to the altar kneel in reverence, 
and yonder you may see the slaves clustering beside the church-porch, with uncov- 
ered heads and forms bent in prayer. 

All is silent in the church, and the Sacrament begins. 

The Preacher stands there within the railing, with the silver goblet gleaming in 
one hand, while the other extends the plate of consecrated bread. 

His tall form, clad in the flowing robes of his oihce, towers erect far above the heads 
of the kneeling men and women, while his bold countenance, with high brow and clear, 



106 THE PREACHEE-GENEKAL. 

dark eyes, strikes you with an impression of admiration. He is a noble-looking man, 
with an air of majesty without pride, intellect without vanity, devotion withoiit cant. 

Tell me, as he moves along yonder dispensing the wine and bread, while his deep, 
full voice fills the church with the holy words of the Sacrament — tell me does he not 
honor his great office, this Preacher of noble look and gleaming eyes ? 

Look ! how fair hands are reached forth to grasp the cup, how manly heads bow 
low as the bread of life passes from lip to lip ! Not much whining here, not much 
strained mockery of devotion, but in every face you see the tokens of a sincere and 
honest religion. 

The Preacher passes along, bending low as he places the goblet to the red lips of 
yonder maiden or extends the bread to the white-haired man by her side. Meanwhile 
his sonorous voice fills the church : 

find as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and 

gave it to his disciples, and said. Take, eat, this is my body. 

And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying. Drink ye all 
of it, for this is my blood of the JVew Testament, which is shed for many, for the 
remission of sins. 

As you gaze upon the scene a holy memory seizes upon your soul. 

The quiet church, the earnest faces of the spectators, the sunlight stealing through 
the deep-silled windows, over the group of kneeling men and women who, in this time 
of blood and war, have met to celebrate the Supper of the Lord, the tall Preacher 
passing before the altar, the goblet gleaming in his hand — this is the scene which is 
now present with you. 

The memory ? 

Ah, that is of a far-gone day, some seventeen centuries ago, when in the fragrant 
chamber of Jerusalem Jesus looked around with his eyes of eternal love, and shared the 
cup and bread with his faithful Eleven, while beloved John looked silently into his face 
and black browed Judas scowled at his shoulder. Yes, the memory seizes upon you 
now, and you hear his tones, you see his f;ic3 — the low, deep tones flowing with eternal 
music — the face of Godhead, with its eyes of unutterable beauty. 

Now the Sacrament is over, yet still the men and women are kneeling there. 

The Preacher advances and stands in front of his people, with the silver cup in his 
hand. A slight breeze ruffles the folds of his robes and tosses his dark hair back from 
his brow. 

lie is about to speak on a subject of deep interest, for his lip is compressed, his 
brow wears a look of gloom. Every man, woman, and child in that crowded church 
listens intently for his first word ; the negroes come crowding around the church- 
porch, the communicants look up from their prayers. 

The words of the Preacher were uttered in a tone that thrilled every heart : 

" There is a time to preach, to pray, to fight !" He paused, looking from face to 
face with his flashing eyes. 

" The time to preach is gone, the time to pray is past, the time to fight has come !" 

You could see his stature dilate, his eye fire, as he thundered through the church — 
" the time to fight has come /" 

The silver goblet shook in his quivering hands. With one impulse the congregation' 
started to their feet. With the same movement the kneeling communicants arose. 
These strange words burned like fire-coals at every heart. 

" Yes," thundered the Preacher, " yes, my brethren, when we preach again it must 



THE PREACHER-GENEKAL. 107 

be with the sword by our side, when we pray it must be with the rifle in our hands ! 
I say the time to fight has come ! for at this hour your land is red with innocent blood 
poured forth by the hirelings of the British King. For at this moment the voices of 
dead men call from the battle-fields, and call to you ! They call you forth to the de- 
fense of your homes, your wives, and little ones ! At this moment, while the noonday 
sun falls calmly on your faces, the voices of your brothers in arms pierce this lonely 
valley, and bid you seize the rifle for your country and your God!" 

Bold words these, majestic the bearing of the Preacher, fierce as flame- coals his 
look, eloquent his ringing voice. 

A deep murmur swelled through the church — a wild, ominous sound — and then all 
was still again. 

" My brethren, we have borne this massacre long enough. Now our country, our 
God, our dead brethren call on us. Now our wives look in our faces and wonder why 
we delay to seize the sword, nay, our little ones appeal to us for protection against the 
robber and assassin. Come, my friends, I have preached with you, prayed with you, 
I have eaten the Saviour's body and drank his blood. Now, by the blessing of God, T 
will lead you to battle. Come, in the name of that country which now bleeds beneath 
the invader's feet — in the name of the dead who gave their lives in this holy cause — 
in the name of the God who made you, and the Saviour who redeemed you — I say, 
come ! To arms ! The time to fight is here !" 

Did you ever see the faces of a crov/d change, like the hues of the ocean in a storm ? 
Did you ever hear the low, deep moaning of that ocean when the storm is about to 
break over its bosom .' 

Then you may have some idea of the wild agitation which ran like electric fire 
through this quaint old Chapel of St. John, as the preacher stood erect, with the 
goblet held in his extended hand, his brow flushed with a warm glow, and his eyes 
gleaming fire. 

" The time to fight is here !" he said, as with a sudden movement he flung his sacer- 
dotal robe from his form, and stood disclosed before his congregation arrayed in 
warrior costume. 

Yes, from head to foot his proud form was clad in the blue uniform of the Conti- 
nental host, while the pistols protruded from his belt and the sword shone by his side. 

At that sight a murmur arose, a wild hurra shook the chujch. 

" To arms !" arose like thunder on the Sabbath air. 

And then there was one wild impulse quivering throiigh each manly breast, as though 
each heart beat with the same pulsation. They came rushing forward, those robust 
forms ; they clustered around the altar, eagerly reaching forth their hands to sign 
the paper which the Preacher laid upon the Sacramental table. In that crowd were 
old men with white hair, and boys with beardless chins, all moved by the impulse of the 
hour. The women, too, were there urging their brothers, their husbands, to sign their 
names to the Preacher's muster-roll, and become soldiers for their country and their 
God. 

The sunlight fell over the wild array of faces glowing with emotion, and revealed 
the light forms of the women passing through the crowd, while the Preacher stood 
alone, with the paper in one hand and his good sword in the other. 

Softly came the summer breeze through the windows ; brilliantly in the sunlight 
glittered the cross and the holy letters — I. H. S. Still the Preacher stood there, that 
proud flash upon his brow, that deep satisfaction gleaming from his dark eye. 



108 Ills STYLE. HEBREW POETRY. 

" Now," said he, gazing upon the stout forms which encompassed him like a wall, 
" now let us pray God's blessing upon our swords." 

As one man they knelt. 

The Preacher, attired as he was in the blue and buff uniform, knelt in their midst, 
clasping his sword in his hand, while his deep voice arose in prayer to God. 

Now, these extracts — which give a fair idea — nothing more — of Lip- 
pard's habitual style, constitute the best answer we can give to critical 
objurgations. If they contain " treason" against the English language, 
Lippard might well say in defiance, " make the most o'nt." 

Do our readers notice the resemblance between portions of Lippard's 
writings and the lyrical parts of the Old Testament ? The characteristic 
of Hebrew poetry is its parallelism — that is, the same idea or shade of 
thought is expressed twice in the same verse. The first portion puts the 
thought in one light, and the latter portions another light, but the thought 
is essentially the same. All the biblical bards abound in examples. We 
take an illustration from that eloquent description of the war-horse in 
Job: 

Hast thou given the horse strength ? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder .' 

Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper ? The glory of his nostrils is ter- 
rible. 

He pawcth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength ; he goeth on to meet the 
armed men. 

He mocketh at fear and is not affrighted ; neither turneth he back from the sword. 

The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield. 

He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage ; neither believeth he that it is 
the sound of the trumpet. 

He saith among the trumpets ha ! ha ! and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thun- 
der of the captains and the shouting. 

Note the duplication of the idea in each passage. It is conveyed in 
two forms, balancing as upon a pivot in the middle of the sentence. 

Now read these paragraphs picked almost at random from Lippard's 
writings : 

Let us kneel, let us worship here, for the Carpenter of Nazareth comes near us, clad 
in the garments of toil, yet with the Godhead beaming serenely from his radiant brow. 

Here in this desert he has wandered forty days and forty nights. Not a crust has 
passed those lips, not a cup of water moistened that throat, whose beautiful outline 
is seen above the collar of his coarse garb. 

Here he has dwelt for forty days companioned by day with silence, by night with 
the stars, at all times by an Almighty presence, shining unutterable images of beauty 
into his soul. 

Ah, in this time his heart has throbbed for man ; yes, in the workshop, degraded 
by oppression in the mine, burdened by the chain, in the field with the hot sun pour- 
ing over his brow, still Man his Brother ! 



THE CHAMPION OF WOMAN. 109 

Yes, beneath the calm light of the stars, amid the silence of noonday, at twilight 
■when the long shadows of the palms rested upon the bosom of the Dead Sea, has his 
great mission come home to his soul, calling him with its awful voice to go forth and 
free his brother. 

But lo ! he hungers, he thirsts, at last. Where shall he find bread or water ? Not 
from these rocks, covered with rank moss, shall grow the bread that nourishes ; not 
from the dead wave of yonder sea shall the bent palm-leaf be filled with pui-e water. 

Jesus hungers, thirsts ; the hot sky is above, the arid earth below. But neither 
bread nor water meet his gaze. 

We do not need to give other examples. Every page of Lippard con- 
tains more or less of this Hebraic parallelism. 

We do not say that he copied after the Old Testament poetry. But 
that the perusal of that book in the Hebrew tongue had a strong influence 
upon his future style we have no doubt. 

His pen was nowhere more at home than in his portraitures of woman 
in her tender relations of lover, wife, and mother. His idea of woman 
was romantic, chivalric. He was not only a troubadour singing to her 
praises, but a gallant knight, who might say with Tennyson's " Sir 
Galahad"— 

" How sweet are looks that ladies bend 
On whom their favors fall ! 
For them I battle to the end, 
To save from shame and thrall." 

He was their champion. Some of the most eloquent pages in his 
books are devoted to a denunciation of those miserable crawling creatures, 
who bring all their energies to the " conquest" of a poor girl, and then 
lioast of it as if it were a splendid victory. For them his pen could never 
hold gall enough. He evidently believed, of seducers, that they are 
outlaws from society, and amenable to the first pistol that they meet in 
the hands of any honest man. It is strange that, whenever an author has 
the I)oldness to attack profligacy with an unsparing hand, he is straight- 
way accused of an " immoral tendency." We don't know who first 
brought this charge against Lippard. It was either the leprous wretches, 
whom he kicks from one end of his books to the other, or else those 
malevolent critics who seemed determined to denounce him at any ex- 
pense of truth and honor. Certainly Lippard never pandered to vice. 
There are loathsome worms about society who feast on every exposure 
of vice, and revel in its rottenness. For them you can draw no moral 
from any crime, however awful and disgusting. They gloat upon female 
anguish, and feed upon the tears of beauty in distress. Such spawns of 
humanity might have found a filthy delight in some of Lippard's pages 



110 THE 

But to all honest people they are full of moral teachings, and bring home, 
with a terrible force, the question. Why should not the betrayal of an in- 
nocent woman be placed among the worst crimes of society ? why 
should it any longer be regarded (in some States of this Union) as a 
mere bagatelle — a venial gallantry, to be laughed at by juries and expi- 
ated by a paltry fine ? None but a pure-minded man could write like 
this : 

In some old book of mysticism and superstition, I have read this wild legend, which, 
mingling as it does the terrible with the grotesque, has still its meaning and its 
moral. 

In the sky, f:ir, far above the earth — so the legend runs — there hangs an awful 
bell, invisible to mortal eye, which angel hands alone may toll, which is never tolled 
save when the unpardonable sin is committed on earth, and then its judgment peal 
rings out like the blast of the archangel's trumpet, breaking on the ear of the criminal, 
and on his ear alone, with a sound that freezes his blood with horror. The peal of 
the bell, hung in the azure depths of space, announces to the guilty one, that he is nn 
outcast from God's mercy forever, that his crime can never be pardoned while the 
throne of the Eternal endures ; that in the hour of death his soul will be darkened 
by the hopeless prospect of an eternity of woe ; woe without limit, despair without 
hope ; the torture of the never-dying worm, and the unquenchable flame, forever and 
forever. 

Reader! did the sound of the judgment bell, pealing with one awful toll from the 
invisible air, break over the soul of the libertine as in darkness and in silence he 
stood shuddering over the victim of his crime .' 

If in the books of the last day there shall be found written down but one ttn^ 
pardonable crime, that crime will be known as the foul wrong accomplished in the 
gaudy Rose Chamber of Monk-hall by the wretch who now stood trembling in the 
darkness of the place wliile his victim lay senseless at his feet. 

There is an inspiration about that malediction. It must have been 
honestly said. And there is good poetry in it as well. 

We confess to lildng this study from nature, for it evidently is one. It 
introduces " the Coilclusion" of " The Quaker City :" 

In a deep forest wild a maiden form bent over a spring of clear, cold water, which 
bubbled upward from among a mass of green leaves, near the foot of a giant oak. She 
bent down on the velvet moss, while the green leaves of shrubbery encircling her 
on every side, and the thick branches of trees meeting overhead in a canopy of 
verdure, made the plaote seem like a fairy bower of some olden story. 

She bent down over ihe spring, not with a cup or a goblet in her hand, but witli a 
white lily trembling in her delicate fingers, as its petals dipped gently into the waters. 
Those waters, so clear, so cold, so tranquil, reflected the outlines of a fair young face, 
the gleam of two mihljblue eyes, the graceful flow of light brown hair, tossed gently 
on the summer' air. A s she gazed into this living mirror, a single ray of sunlight fell 
quivering from the cajaopy overhead, and trembled on the bosom of the spring, while 
a smile stole over tUie maiden's face. It was a smile, but sad and mournful as a 



A PRETTY PICTCRfC. Ill 

knell; it was a smile, but gloomy as a sunbeam falling over the grave of 3'outli and 
beauty. 

Suddenly the maiden uprose from her kneeling posture. She placed the lily on 
her bosom, and with a light step threaded the mazes of a winding path that led 
around the trunks of colossal trees, over the softly tufted moss, and beneath the 
shade of leafy branches. Now the strain of some wild and melancholy song burst 
from her lips, and now with her blue eyes upturned, she gazed vacantly upon a 
glimpse of the blue heavens, murmuring strange words to herself all the while. 
Again she bounded on her way, until dashing a mass of green leaves aside, she stood 
upon the brow of a gentle hill, with the summer wind playing among her dark-brown 
tresses, while her blue eyes shone with a calm and holy delight. 

A calm sheet of water, embosomed in the crest of the mountain, with banks high 
and rugged, clothed with forest trees, or gentle and sloping, crowned with soft and 
luxuriant shrubbery, a calm sheet of water, with its stainless depths resting in tha 
smile of the summer sky, like a sleeping child beneath its mother's gaze ! Such was 
the vision that burst on the delighted eye of the moiden, while her ears were soothed 
by tlie melody of the wood-bird's song, mingling with the murmur of a brooklet, 
echoing from the bosom of the shrubbery around the foot of the knoll, as it sank 
gently into tlie waters of the mountain lake. 

The maidon gazed upon this scene of calm loveliness, while a mournful expression 
stole over her face, as though some memory of the past came sadly to her soul. 

Arising from the center of a fair garden that bloomed over the slope of a glade, 
declining gently to the water's brink, a cottage, overshadowed by a grove of forest 
trees, with vines trailing round its arching windows, and winding walks leading 
down to the lake, broke on the maiden's eye like a vision of a happy home, reared 
by the hands of love in the solitude of the wilderness. The cottage, two stories in 
height, with arching windows and a steep, gabled roof, arose from a flowery knoll 
not more than a hundred yards from the spot where the maiden stood. 

The faint yellow hue of tlie cottage walls was in beautiful contrast with the ver- 
dure of the vines trailing round its windows, the deep green of the branches wav- 
ing above its roof, the brown graveled paths of the garden, or the beds of flowera 
scattered all around, with the sunbeams gleaming over rose and lily, as they waved 
gently to the summer air. 

Suddenly the sound of footsteps came faintly to the maiden's ear. Turnin"- toward 
tlie forest, she beheld two forms advancing along a wide graveled walk, which 
sloped down toward the knoll, witli the interwoven branches forming a verdant arch 
overhead. A fair girl supported the arm of an aged woman, whose tall form, clad in 
deep black, was in strong contrast with the light figure at her side, also attired in 
robes of sable. They came slowly along the walk ; they perceived the form of the 
maiden clad in light robes; in a moment they reached her side. 

"We have lost our way in the forest, miss," cried the aged lady, gazing upon tho 
beautiful face of the girl with an expression of wonder mingled with aihuiration. 
" In company with a party of our friends, we left the valley of Wyoming this morn- 
ing, with the intention of enjoying the free air of these mountains. But h.aving 
missed our friends, we are forced to ask you to direct us to the road wliich leada 
from the forest—" 

The maiden in robes of white made no reply. Her blue eyes were enchained by 
the face of the maiden who accompanied the aged lady. With slow footsteps she ad- 



112 A BUXOM LANDLADY. 

vanced to licr side, slie Inid her Lands gently on ber shoulders, and Tritli a wild gnze 
perused each feature of her beautiful countenance. She was indeed beautiful as a 
dream. Waving tresses of auburn hair, mingling the purple dyes of sunset Avith the 
deep black of midnight, relieved a fair countenance whose pale brow was impressed 
with an expression of deep sadness, whose dark-hazel eyes were full of thoughtful 
sorrow. 

There they stood gazing in each other's faces, those two images of youth and love- 
liness, while the aged dame looked from countenance to countenance with an ex- 
pression of mute wonder. 

Now for a pretty little Crayon sketch of an old-time landlady. Pity 
the race is so nearly extinct. 

And in a moment " Betsey," the proprietor of the roadside cottage, appeared in the 
doorway, holding a bowl of fragrant October in her hand. 

Betsey was by no means old, or thin, or ugly. A bouncing dame of some thirty-five 
years, with very small bright eyes shining in a face round as the full moon, and 
blooming as a garden of roses. Her capacious bust was enveloped in a snow-white 
handkerchief, and her dark linsey skirt descending but half way below the knee, left 
exposed to view a pair of ankles which, encased in home-spun stockings, seemed 
altogether too slender for her luxuriant form. Her feet, too, enveloped in coarse 
leather shoes, did not seem at all adapted to bear the weight of so much substantial 
womanhood, and as for her hands, small and white and fat, with dimples sprinkled 
all over the joints, they were altogether too diminutive in comparison with her arms, 
which, bared from the shoulder, showed their clear skin and full, round outline freely 
to the sunlight. 

On Betsey's chestnut-brown hair, parted neatly over her full-moon face, a small 
muslin cap nestled like a bird in its nest ; her cheeks, her chin, her neck — whiter 
even than the snowy handkerchief which bound her bust — were scattered with dim- 
ples, every one of which laughed like a sunbeam. 

Betsey was a widow ; she sheltered her sorrows in the cottage by the roadside ; in 
the winter she knitted and spun, and helped the neighbors on festival occasions ; in 
the summer she bloomed and flourished like a bee in its hive, or the seed in an apple. 
Belling " Bier and Sider" to thirsty villagers or dusty travelers. 

Lippard's heroines are mostly tender, trusting creatures. They are 
not celebrated for any profound discoveries in the domain of woman's 
rights, and are not much given to heroic deeds. He loved to portray 
gentle, confiding creatures — too often betrayed by the exces-s of their 
artlessness. But now and then he departs from this rule and gives us, 
for instance, 

THE HERO-WOMAN. 

In the shadows of the Wissahikon woods, not more than half a mile from the Schuyl- 
kill, there stood, in the time of the Revolution, a quaint old fabric, built of mingled 
logs and stone, and encircled by a palisaded wall. It had been erected in the earlier 
days of William Penn — perhaps some years before the great apostle of peace first trod 
our shores — as a block-house, intended for defense against the Indians. 

And now it stood with its many roofs, its numerous chimneys, its massive square 



THE IIKRO-WOMAN. 113 

windows, its varied front of logs and stone, its encircling wall, through wliich admit- 
tance was gained by a large and stoutly-built gate : it stood in the midst of the wood, 
with age-worn trees inclosing its veteran outline on every side. 

From its western window you might obtain a glimpse of the Schylkill waves, while 
a large casement in the southern front commanded a view of the winding road as it 
sunk out of view, under the shade of thickly-clustered boughs, into a deep hollow not 
more than one hundred yards from the mansion. 

Here, from the southern casement, on one of those balmy summer days which look 
in upon the dreary autumn toward the close of November, a farmer's daughter was 
gazing with dilating eyes and half-clasped hands. 

Well might she gaze earnestly to the south and listen with painful intensity for the 
slightest sound ! Her brothers were away with the army of Washington, and her 
father, a grim old veteran— he stood six feet and three inches in his stockings — who 
had manifested his love for the red-coat invaders in many a det^pcrate contest, had 
that morning left her alone in the old mansion, alone in this small chamber, in 
charge of some ammunition intended for a band of brave farmers about to join the 
hosts of freedom. Even as she stood there, gazing out of the southern window, a 
faint glimpse of sunlight from the faded leaves above, pouring over her mild face, 
shaded by clustering brown hair, there, not ten paces from her side, were seven load- 
e;l rifles and a keg of powder. 

Leaning from the casement, she listened with every nerve quivering with suspense, 
to the shouts of combatants, the hurried tread of armed men echoing from the south. 

There was something very beautiful in that picture ! The form of the young girl, 
framed by the square massive window, the contrast between the rough timbers that 
inclosed her and that rounded face, the lips parting, the hazel eye dilating, and the 
cheek warming and flushing with hope and fear ; there was something very beautiful 
in that picture, a young girl leaning from the window of an old mansion, with her 
brown hair waving in glossy masses around her face ! 

Suddenly the shouts to the south grew nearer, and then, emerging from the deep hol- 
low, there came an old man, running at full speed, yet every few paces turning round 
to fire the rifle which he loaded as he ran. He was pursued by a party of ten or 
more British soldiers, who came rushing on, their bayonets fixed, as if to strike their 
victim down ere he advanced ten paces nearer the house. 

On and on the old man came, while his daughter, quivering with suspense, hung 
leaning from the window. He reaches the block-house gate ! Look ! He is surround- 
ed ; their muskets are leveled at his head ; he is down, down at their feet, grappling 
for his life ! But look again ! He dashes his foes aside ; with one bold movement he 
springs through the gate; an instant, and it is locked. The British soldiers, mad 
with rage, gaze upon the high walls of logs and stones and vent their anger in 
drunken curses. 

Now look to yonder window ! Where the young girl stood a moment ago, quivering 
with suspense as she beheld her father struggling for his life, now stands that old 
man himself, his brow bared, his arm grasping the rifle, while his gray hairs wave 
back from his wrinkled and blood-dabbled face! That was a fine picture of an old 
veteran nerved for his last fight; a stout warrior preparing for his death-struggle. 

Death-struggle ? Yes; for the old man, Isaac Wampolo, had dealt too many hard 
blows among the British soldiers, tricked, foiled, cheated them too often to c.«cape 
now ! A few moments longer and they would be reinforced by a strong party of rcf- 

8 



114: THE HERO-WOMAN. 

ngees ; tlie powder, the arms in the old block -house, perhaps that daughter herself, 
■was to be their reward. There was scarcely a hope for the old man, and yet he had 
determined to make a deperate fight. 

" We must bluff off these rascals !" he said, with a grim smile, turning to his child. 
" Now, Bess, my girl, when I fire this rifle do you hand me another, and so on until 
the whole eight shots are fired! That will keep them on the other side of the wall 
for a few moments, at least, and then we will have to trust to God for the rest !" 

Look down there, and see a hand stealing over the edge of the wall ! Tlie old man 
levels his piece — that British trooper falls back with a crushed hand upon his com- 
rades' heads ! 

No longer quivering with suspense, but grown suddenly firm, that young girl 
passes a loaded rifle to the veteran's grasp, and silently awaits the result. 

For a moment all is silent below ; the British bravoes are somewhat loth to try 
that wall when a stout old " Rebel," rifle in hand, is looking from yonder window ! 
There is a pause — low, deep murmurs — they are holding a council ! 

A moment is gone, and nine heads are thrust above the wall at once. Hark ! 
One — two— three ! The old veteran has fired three shots ; there are three dying men 
groveling in the yard beneath the shadow of the wall. 

" Quick, Bess, the rifles !" 

And the brave girl passes the rifles to her father's gra?p. Tliere are four shots, 
one after the other ; three more soldiers fell back like weights of lead upon the 
ground, and a single red-coat is seen slowly mounting to the top of the wall, his eye 
fixed upon the hall door, which he will force ere a moment is gone ! 

Now the last ball is fired ; tlie old man stands there, in that second-story window, 
his hands vainly grasping for another loaded rifle. At this moment, the wounded 
and dying band below are joined by a party of some twenty refugees, who, clad in 
their half-robber uniform, came rushing from the woods, and with one bound are 
leaping for the summit of the wall ! 

'' Quick, Bess, my rifle!" 

And look tliere, even "while the veteran stood looking out upon his foes, the brave 
girl— for, slender in form, and wildly beautiful in face, she is a brave girl, a Hero- 
Woman — had managed, as if by instinctive impulse, to load a rifle. She handed it to 
her father, and then loaded another and another. Wasn't that a beautiful sight ! 
A fair young girl, grasping powder and ball, with the ramrod rising and falling iu 
her slender fingers ! 

Now look down to the wall again ! The refugees are clnmbering over its summit — 
again that fatal aim — again a horrid cry — and another wounded man toppling dovra 
upon his dead and dying comrades ! 

But now look ! A smoke rises there ; a fire blazes up around the wall. They have 
fired the gate. A moment, and the bolt and lock will be burnt from their sockets ; 
the passage will be free ! Now is the fio-y moment of the eld man's trial. While hia 
l)rave daughter loads he continues to fire with that deadly aim, but now — oh, horror \ 
He falls, he falls, with a musket-ball driven into his breast- the daughter's out- 
stretched arms receive the father, as, "with the blood spouting from his wound, he top- 
ples back from the window. 

Ah , it is a sad and terrible picture ! 

That old man, writhing there on the oaken floor, the young daughter bending over 
him, the light from the window streaming over her face, over her father's gray haira, 



THE UERO-WOiTAN. 115 

'!\ii;lii tlae ancient furniture of the small chamber affords a dim back-ground to the 
Bcone. 

Now hark ! The sound of axes at the hall door — shouts — hurrahs — curses. 

" We have the old rebel at last !" 

The old man raises his head at that sound ; makes an effort to rise ; clutches for a 
rifle, and then falls back again, his eyes glaring as the fierce pain of that wound 
quivers through his heart. 

Now watch the movements of that daughter. Silently she loads a rifle, silently 
she rests its barrel against the head cf that powder-keg, and then, placing her finger 
on the trigger, stands over her father's form, while the shouts of tlie enraged soldiers 
come thundering from the stairs. Yes, they have broken the hall door to fragments ; 
they are in possession of the old block-houso ; they are rushing toward that chamber 
with murder in their hearts and in tlieir glaring eyes ! Had the old man a thousand 
lives they were not worth a farthing's purchase now. 

Still that girl — grown suddenly white as the 'kerchief round her neck — stands 
there, trembling from head to foot, the rifle in her hand, its dark tube laid against 
the powder-keg. 

The door is burst open — look there! Stout forms are in the doorway, with mus- 
kets in their hands, grim faces stained with blood glare into the room. 

Now, as if her very soul was coined into vrords, that young girl, with her face pale 
as ashes, her hazel eye glaring with deathly light, utters this sliort, yet meaning, 
epeech : 

" Advance one step into the rccm, and 1 will fire this rifle into the powder there !" 

No oath quivers from the I'ps cf that girl to confirm her resolulion, but there she 
Et;ui:ls, alone with her woimded father, and yet not a soldier dare cross the thresh- 
old ! Embrued as they are in deeds of blood, there is something terrible to these 
men in the simple words of that young girl who stands there with the rifle laid 
against the powder-keg. 

They stood as if spell-bound on the threshold of that chamber. 

At last, one bolder than the rest, a bravo, whose lace is half concealed in a thick 
red beard, grasps his musket and levels it at the young girl's breast ! 

" St^nd back, or by I will fire !" 

Still the girl is firm ; the bravo advances a step and then starts back. The sharp 
" dirk'' of the rifle falls with an unpleasant emphasis upon his ear. 

" Bess, I am dying," gasps the old man, faintly extending his arms. " Ha, ha, we 
foiled the Britishers ! Come, daughter, kneel here ; kneel and say a prayer for me, 
and lot me feel your wai-m breath I'pon my face for I am getting cold. Oh, dark and 
cold !" 

Look ! As those trembling accents fall from the eld man's tongue tlicse fingers un» 
loose tlicir hold of the rifle ; already the troopers arc secure of one victim at least, a 
young and beautiful girl — for .'ifl''Jction for her father is mastering the heroism of the 
moment. Look ! She is about to spring into his arms ! But now she sees her dan- 
ger ; again sh.e clutches the rifle; cgain— although her father's dying accents are in 
her ears— stands there, prepared to scatter that house in ruins if a single rough hand 
assails that veteran form. 

There arc a few brief terrible moments of suspense. Then a hurrietl sound far 
down the mansion ; then a contest on the stairs ; then the echp of rifle shot and tlie 
liTiit of rifle blaze ; then those ruflBans in the doorway fall crushed bsfdro the strong 



116 A FEW MONTH 3 IN NEW YOKK:. 

arms of Continental soldiers. Then a wild shriek q,uivers througli tke room, se^ 
that young girl — that Hero-Woman — with one bound, springs forward into her 
brother's arms and nestles there, while her dead father, his form yet warm, lays with 
fixed eyeballs upon the floor. 

Lippard visited New York in the fall of that year and made arrange- 
ments with the Messrs. Burr, then publishers of the "Na-tional Democrat," 
to act as literary editor of that paper, upon a handsome salary. While 
he filled that position he wrote numerous sketches upon the exhaustless- 
subject of New York Life, in its manifold marvelous phases. They were 
characterized by all the fine scene-painting pathos and satire of his former 
works, and were very favorably received by the public. 

During his residence in this city, Mr. Lippard lived in the house of his 
friend, Heman Burr. Mr. Burr informs us that, at this time, Lippard was 
much given to fits of abstraction and meditation. He would sit ponder- 
ing, alone, for hours. He occasionally hinted at new schemes for the- 
amelioration of mankind. He was evidently evolving some great and 
novel plan of social refornr. We have not been able to learn what it was. 
He did not talk about it very freely. But we judge from all we can gather^ 
that Lippard, in the last year of his life, was passing through a great 
mental change which, had he lived, would have been the turning point 
of his career. 

Even the enemies of our author must admire his persistence and energy 
of purpose. What had he to live for — who to cheer him, help him,, 
sympathize with him — that he, whose whole youth had been spent in toil^ 
should be entering upon new projects of social reformation ? Had he 
been spared, we believe he would have done more and better things than. 
in the early part of his career. 



He resumed bis residence in Philadelphia in the spring of 1853. He 
was much fatigued in body and mind with his labors while in New York, 
and for several weeks following performed very little literary labor, if we 
except some finishing touches to his " Upper Ten and Lower Million." 
He began to feel about this time some premonitions of the disease 
which within a year from that time was to lay him in the grave. This 
presentiment gradually settled into a fixed belief. He wrote to a friend 
in Cleveland, speaking of his illness, and in the course of the letter made 
the prediction, that he should not live a year from the date, June 25th, 
1853. 

We quote the closing passages of this letter : " My health in general 
is good, but I have Uhat within me which passeth show^ — in other words, 



FOREBODES HI3 DEATH. GOES TO LAKE 6TJPE11T0E. 117 

I am sentenced to death by consumption. If this impression prove in- 
correct, 1 will be the first to acknowledge it, a year from to-day ; and 
if it dorft, you will acknowledge that I spoke truly. It is an ugly word 
to say, and I hate to see it on paper, to say nothing of writing it, but I 
am making my last march ; a year hence your friend will be among those 
who have been. 

" I wish to go to Lake Superior, and spend a part of the summer there. 
To see Niagara again — once more. To see Ohio again. And if my 
means favor, I will do this. After- thirty years in this world, I naturally 
wish to enjoy my last summer, and bid to it a kindly good-bye. Pardon, 
if I have said that which will make you sad — but I write as I feel, and — 
there is no evading the truth. It is as I have said. 

" In brotherhood, 

" GEORGE LIPPARD." 

The reader vpill notice that in these singular — almost prophetic passages 
1(of which we give an engraved copy, after the autograph elsewhere) — Lip- 
pard speaks of his disease as the consumption. He afterward, as we 
shall see, erroneously supposed it to be an affection of the liver. 

His friend replied to this letter, making suggestions to facilitate the 
proposed trip to Lake Superior. 



Lippard, in pursuance of this plan, came on to Cleveland for the third 
time in the early part of the summer of that year. His appearance, at 
that time, did not indicate the fearful ravages that disease was mak- 
ing in his system. He looked as well as at any time for three years, 
and had lost little or none of his old cheerfulness. He rarely spoke of 
his illness, and then generally when some one else introduced the subject. 
He disliked to converse about it, probably out of regard to the feelings 
of his friends. We do not believe that he indulged any fixed hope of 
recovery. 

He seems to have enjoyed his visit to Lake Superior very much. The 
air of that region — in the summer — is delightfully fresh and bracing* It 
is almost always on the move, sweeping through the straits, or blow- 
ing from distant shores, or gathering in bays and coves and breathing a 
benediction of health over land and water. The sky is obscured by no 
miasmatic vapors, or smoke belched from huge chimneys. Islands far dis- 
tant from you stand out with clear, sharp outlines of hills, and rocks, and 
trees. The twilight hangs on so late in the evening, that you can read 
a newspaper in the open air, without much trouble, at nine or ten o'clock ; 
and the morning begins to brighten in the sky two hours after midnight. 



118 DESCENT OF THE FALLS. 

The water of Lake Superior and the upper part of Huron is so trans- 
parent that of a calm day you can see the mossy rocks down twenty or 
thirty feet, and fishes playing sportively in and out of them. The hills 
encircling the shores are covered with a thick growth of balsams, upon 
whose soft, green curves, swelling like a succession of little hills back to 
the horizon, the eye rests with delight. All outward things conspire to 
rejoice the heart. 

None of these natural beauties escaped the quick eye of Lippard. 
He was of course charmed with them, and had he been a younger and 
still ambitious man, he would have charmed us in turn with pflowinor 
descriptions of scenery, or made a new lot of thrilling legends, founded 
upon the Indian traditions of the Lakes. But no such idea entered his 
head, or if it did, was dismissed as an idle dream. He spent most of 
his time at the Sault Ste Marie, a pleasant little village upon the river 
of that name, which connects lakes Superior and Huron. He passed 
his hours here much as all visitors do, walking, sailing, fishing, chatting, 
and sleeping (and oh! such fine, sound sleep as you get there). As 
usual, he formed any number of pleasant acquaintances, upon the shortest 
possible notice, and was the center of many a delighted group, who 
listened to his lively and sportive conversation. 

The most important incident of his trip was a descent of the Falls, 
which he achieved in a frail canoe, in company with several friends. 
These Falls (or Rapids) pour down from Lake Superior through a chan- 
nel over half a mile wide, sloping about twenty-two feet in the distance 
of a mile. The speed of the rushing water is about twenty miles an 
hour. The descent of these tumbling Rapids is full of danger, unless 
you know the track. It lies among huge, black rocks — some lifting their 
heads audaciously above the torrent— others lying deceitfully beneath it, 
and only now and then revealed by the hollow of the waves. The trip is 
usually performed with a birch bark boat, guided by two Indians. One 
stands at the bow with a pole to keep the " cockle shell" off the rocks, 
while the other, with a like implement, prevents it from swinging round 
with the current. It is surprising to see ''the Aborigines" guide one of 
these little things over this " hell of waters." They stand like statues, 
their lank, black hair floating about their temples, their sharp, black eyes 
flashing all around them in quest of danger. They move their long poles 
from this side to that with marvelous rapidity, and save your life from 
imminent peril about a dozen times a minute. All this while they utter 
nothing but an occasional guttural sound, as they exchange directions or 
execrations with each other. Passengers are expected, during this criti- 



PHILADELPHIA AGAIN. VISITS THE GRAVES OF HIS LOST ONES. 119 

cal peiiormancc, to sit still in the bottom of the boat, unless they desire 
to be tipped into the other world. This was a great event in Lippard's 
quiet life, and must have produced a whirl of sensations in his active 
brain. 

He remained a week or two in this interesting region, with a slight 
improvement in his health, we believe. The disease which, without his 
knowledge, was sapping away his very life-blood, had probably made too 
much headway to be stayed by any earthly power. His condition was, 
however, as we have said, slightly improved ; but he soon caught a cold, 
and relapsed again. 



Lippard reached Philadelphia in the month of September, taking Cleve- 
land on his way back, and visiting several other places in Ohio at the 
request of friends. His cough perceptibly increased all this'time. Ar- 
riving home, however, instead of putting himself under medical advice, 
he began to devote considerable of his time to writing. He commenced 
furnisliing " Scott's Weekly" with a series of legends mostly treating of 
the French Revolution of the last century, to which he had paid much 
attention. He also made a bargain with the " Philadelphia Sunday 
Mercury" to write a story called " Eleanor, or Slave-Catchiqg in the 
Quaker City," of which he gave in regular portions up to the time of his 
death. 

He resided at this period in Apple Street, about a mile and a half from 
the center of the city. This distance he used to walk every day. He 
preferred this means of locomotion on account of the healthy exercise ; 
and then, again, he had a perfect horror of omnibuses, and never could bo- 
coaxed into one upon ordinary occasions. 

One of his earliest acts after visiting Philadelphia was to visit the 
graves of his wife, children, and sister, situated several miles from the 
city. He performed the journey on foot, and remained about the sai spot 
in solemn communion with the dead for one whole day. It was with him 
no ostentatious show of grief — for other people to talk about and wonder 
at — but the expression of a sincere and heart-rending sorrow in which 
he found a sweet relief. It was the pious pilgrimage of a bereaved love. 

His cough grew worse by slow degrees, and early in October he began 
to sink under it. The first serious e.\hibition of the disease occurred at 
the house of one of his intimate friends — Mr. E. E. Barclay, the pub- 
lisher, who resided at that time in South Seventh Street. He had been 
often in the habit of calling at his (Mr. B.'s) before his return home in 
the evening. On the occasion referred to he complained of being very 



120 HIS LAST ILLNESS. 



1 



unwell. Mr. and Mrs, Barclay very kindly attended to his wants, and in 
the morning, after a good night's rest, he returned in a carriage to his 
house in Apple Street, in company with Mr. B. 

Mr. Lippard had before this called on a physician and procured a vial 
of medicine, prescribed for an affection of the bronchial tubes ; but in 
general he had cared little for medical advice. At this crisis he began 
to look upon his case as more serious, and another physician was sent 
for to come to his house. He did so, and prepared a prescription for the 
liver complaint. Mr. Lippard insisted that he was suffering under that 
disease. He was confident of it, for the reason, among others, that his 
father died of the same malady. 

He took the prescription, but without any visible change. It is doubt- 
ful whether any medicine would have effected any good at that juncture. 
Lippard did little or nothing to assist the success of its operation. Above 
all things he needed perfect quiet ; but he could not be quiet, though his 
life were at stake, and he knew it. His mind could not endure the prison- 
house of silence enjoined upon a sick chamber. Numerous friends called 
upon him to inquire after his health, and liippard entered actively as ever 
into conversation with them. He would talk, discuss, and argue with all 
his old fiery vehemence of language and gesture. A friend relates an 
instance in which Lippard became fiercely engaged in one of these con- 
troversies. He spoke in a loud key, and his voice seemed for a {evf 
moments to be as powerful as formerly ; but the effort was too much for 
him. His frame reeled under it, and he was compelled to sit down from 
exhaustion. 

And when alone, his imagination wandered away into that wonderful 
region in which he so much loved to revel. He filled solitude with 
images. He lived over again, in fancy, the happy and better hours of 
the past, or he conjured up strange romances without any design of 
writing, but merely for his own mental gratification. He could have 
turned a hermit's cell into a place of enchantment. After about a fort- 
night's confinement to his house, he thought himself strong .enough to 
venture into the open air. In company with Mr. Barclay, he rode out to 
the Lamb Tavern, in the outskirts of the city. He enjoyed the trip very 
much. He little thought that his next journey would be to the grave. 
He was never able to leave the house after the excursion to the Lamb 
Tavern. 

In a letter to Heman Burr, Esq., of New York, dated October ISth, 
ISSli, we find this expression : 

" And I have not written, mainly because I did not wish to write a 



VISIT FKOM SPIRITUALISTS. HIS PECDNIAKT CIRCUMSTAIICES. 121 

gloomy letter, and if I write the truth I can not write any thing but a 
gloomy letter. For my days are numbered, Heman, and 1 do not com- 
plain of it, but wish that it were well and safely over." 



Among the visitors to his house were Mrs. French, of Pittsburgh, and 
Mr. Gordon, of Philadelphia, (both Spiritualists), who called upon him 
one day to inquire into his condition. Mrs. French brought a bottle of 
medicine which, she said, had been prescribed by the spirits specially 
for his case. She mentioned several instances in which prescriptions 
of similar origin had been taken with success. Lippard's reply was 
characteristic of the man. He pointed to a small bust of Christ which 
stood upon the mantle and said, "That's the spirit I believe in." And it 
was no melodramatic remark, but the confession of a soul already touched 
with the shadows of another world. 

Mrs. French not only assured him that the medicine was offered free 
of expense, but inquired with much kindness whether he was in need of 
pecuniary relief. Lippard promptly replied that he was not. 

We will add here, that he was very much annoyed by paragraphs 
(well meant, of course) going the busy round of the newspapers to the 
effect that he was in needy circumstances. This was not the case. 
His house in Apple Street was a commodious three-story building. It 
was amply provided with good furniture and neatly carpeted. It was oc- 
cupied by himself, his two aunts (whom he had furnished with a home 
for many years), and a nurse who attended him in his sickness. The 
services of this nurse were paid for by Gen. Dillar, father of Henry Dil- 
lar, Esq., now deceased, one of the dearest friends of Lippard's younger 
days. No reasonable comfort was wanting, and the path of the dying 
man was smoothed by many a little luxury. He had money enough to 
meet all his wants, and some to spare. His friends in different parts of 
the country, on hearing of his illness, had promptly forwarded handsome 
contributions without solicitation. He had, also, during a greater part 
of his illness, written upon the story of " Eleanor," which yielded him 
a considerable sum. And he had also made something out of his 
Legends of the French Revolution. His friends about Philadelphia 
were ready and anxious to do all that lay in their power. So far from 
being poor, he may be said to have died in very comfortable worldly cir- 
cumstances. 

The medicine left him by Mrs. French he would probably have taken 
but for the advice of his physician. 



122 WASTING AWAY. 

Lippard's study, in which he spent most of the time during his ill- 
ness, was a very pleasant, neatly furnished room. It was large, airy, 
carpeted, and contained a wood stove, two tables, a sofa, and several 
chairs. Upon the table at which he wrote were piled several books — 
favorites of his. Among them was a large copy of the Bible finely 
bound in papier mache. A bust of Christ (as we have already said) 
graced the mantle, and several statues mounted on pedestals added to the 
tasteful appearance of the room. It did not front upon the street, and 
was altogether a Very quiet, delightful retreat for an author. Lippard 
was much attached to this apartment, and used to spend most of the day 
in it. He disliked to be confined to his bed, which stood in another part 
of the house, and never remained there whenever he had strength enough 
to get out of it. 



His condition during the latter part of his illness is disclosed in a let- 
ter to Mrs. Amelia Burr, dated January 20th, 1854. In it he writes: 

I am very weak. The Dr. says he can raise me. I think him sincere. My trouble 
is not on the lungs, but with the liver. I have been a prisoner in my room for 
about six -weeks. The good God hath bountifully favored me in regard to money : 
I have enough, although, it is true, I wrote a book after I was sick, which prostrated 
me. I do wonder if I will get well ; or if this is my last illness ! 

Pray for me, Amelia, to God and Christ. 

For some weeks before' his death Lippard gradually faded away. 
Though his limbs were much shrunken, his face, however, preserved 
much of its manly beauty and symmetry. This was probably owing to 
its strong, bony structure. In spite of the evidences of his approaching 
dissolution, Lippard, at times, expected to survive. He cared little for 
life. His loves were in another world ; his hopes all there ; his thoughts 
all tended thither ; and in many of his most serious moments we believe 
he would have trusted the issue of his illness to the toss of a penny. 
But he still expected at times to live. We know that about a fortnight 
before his death he talked of procuring a new velvet vest to be worn when 
he was emancipated from the sick chamber. It is a curious fact that 
Lippard, long before he was prostrated with sickness, used to speak more 
confidently of his death than afterward. We have already quoted the 
prediction in his letter to a friend that he should not survive a year from 
June, 1853. He was in the habit of making similar remarks to others. 
He told Mr. Barclay, on several occasions before his illness, that he 
should die in March of 1854. 



HIS DEATH. 123 

Lippard's " ruling passion was strong in death." He wrote the story 
of " Eleanor," as we have seen, after he was stricken down wilh dis- 
ease. The excitement and fatigue of composition were so great that his 
physician prohibited indulgence in it. But Lippard's love of his darling 
occupation could not be suppressed. It took another shape. IIo pro- 
cured drawing-paper, bound it in a book form, and sketched a story in 
pictures. He had an admirable, but uncultivated, talent for penciling. 
Among the sketches wliich a friend remembers who saw this pictorial 
tale, was one of Lippard's wife, which Lippard assured him was correct. 
He worked slyly at this last novel literary undertaking up to the very day 
before his death. He had completed, at that time, over twenty pictures 
— or, rather, series of pictures — each group of which answered the pur- 
pose, by an easy interpretation, of a chapter. 



He kept up the custom of rising every morning and dressing himself. 
He was not confined to his bed for twenty-four hours in succession. 
Even on the eighth of February, the day before his death, he was out 
of bed and dressed as usual. 

. His death took place at about four o'clock on the morning of February 
9th. He had been evidently growing worse through the night. The 
physician was in attendance until early in the morning, when he retired 
to snatch a few hours' sleep. Lippard, shortly before he left the room, 
asked him, " Is this Death?" alluding, probably, to some strange sensa- 
tion and the premonitory chill of dissolving nature. The doctor made 
some comforting remark, little suspecting how soon his patient was to 
pass into " another and a better world." A young lady residing near by 
was called in to see that the sufferer wanted nothing in the doctor's ab- 
sence. It was during this time that Lippard died. She was supporting 
his head, and trying to adjust him in a more easy position, when he gave 
a' prolonged sigh — his breath seeming to leave him in a lingering expira- 
tion — and the strange mystery of death was solved ! — the glass was no 
longer darkened — the other world was Ins world ! No longer need he 
say, with prophetic fervor 

" We see through a glass darkly, and dim shapes are moving there 
over the deep ocean of the other world. 

" From distant darkness — see ! even from that vast and shoreless sea 
— white hands are lifted beckoning; yes, after all, 'tis only a barrier of 
frailest glass that separates the present from the other world. Against 
that frail barrier for ages the waves have been breaking, and their mur- 
murs have been to us whispers of eternal truth. 



124: "home again." 

" We stand in cold and darkness — our hearts bowed — our feet weary 
— our eyes heavy with much watching — while before us stretches that 
dim and awful glass, the only barrier that divides us from eternity. 

" Now and then, lifting our eyes, we gaze through the darkened glass, 
and feel some glimpses of the fathomless sea that rolls beyond it. 

" We listen — even in weariness and despair — and hear some murmurs 
from the sounding sea ; and many a white form glides by us ; and many 
a word, spoken in some well-remembered tone, floats to us ; and then the 
darkness, no longer dark, is set with islands of living light. 

"A sad, yet beautiful, contrast. 

" Here — all cold — all weariness — all despair ; there — opening deep 
after deep — groups of happy homes, swarming with happy faces bathed 
in eternal light ; and only a glass barrier is between. Here, wandering 
children, seeking with blind eagerness some glimpses of the Father's 
face ; there, the wandering child is home again. There, ranged in count- 
less circles, that spread deep after deep through the abysses of eternity, 
is seen nothing but children gazing in the Father's face. 

"Not vague nor transitory is the life of the Other World. It is no 
dream, but a reality. A reality so beautiful that our hearts, sick with 
suffering, are frightened at its very beauty. New duties are there, and 
new life for all of us ; and always a brighter future ; always golden steps 
to mount." 

The white forms had taken the shapes of his parents, wife, children, 
and sisters ; the murmurs were no longer dim utterances from the. sound- 
ing sea, but the sweet, familiar tones of his loved ones speaking face to 
face ; he was now, indeed, home again, gazing with timid hope and trust 
in THE Father's face; the golden steps rose before him ; he had be- 
gun to mount them one by one, and was traversing with clear vision the 
ascent of Eternity ! 



An examination of the body was made on the following day. The 
result disclosed something wholly unexpected. Mr. Lippard's disease 
was not a complaint of the liver. It was found that one lung was entire- 
ly gone, the other shriveled, while the sack about his heart was much 
softened. He had died of consumption of the lungs. This was the 
malady whose dread presence he had never seemed to suspect, and yet 
it had probably been gnawing at his constitution for years. Perhaps the 
seeds of disease had been in his system from his very youth. Lippard's 
habitual neglect of the affection when it first began to reveal itself in a 
cough undoubtedly hastened his death. And so did his nervous, restless 



THE OBSEQUIES OF THE DEAD. 125 

temperament, which chafed under the bits of restraint. But the liand 
of Death was on him long before he came up to manhood, and it is doubt- 
ful — we repeat — whether any remedies or any care could have protracted 
his life to a very old age. 



The last sad offices — the obsequies of the dead — took place on the 
fourth day after his decease. The funeral showed how widely and deeply 
Lippard was beloved. Members of the Brotherhood, on receiving intel- 
ligence of their bereavement, hastened to Philadelphia to assist in the 
melancholy rites. Among them were Orsimus L. Drake and Noah Cas- 
tor, of Ohio, the former the highest officer of the Order in that State, and 
both long-tried and valued friends of the deceased. His house in Apple 
Street was thronged with visitors, all anxious to testify to their sorrow in 
their great common misfortune, and take a last look at the face of their 
brother and friend. The " flash of wit, the bright intelligence," no longer 
irradiated his features ; but the fine forehead, the long, dark hair smoothly 
composed over the brow, the high cheek-bones, the strongly-marked chin, 
the lineaments of high resolve and purpose, were all there. The expres- 
sion of his features was characteristic and attractive even in death. 

The funeral procession was a very large one. Among those who 
swelled its ranks were members of the Brotherhood, Free Masons, and 
Odd Fellows in regalia. A long line of carriages followed, and the sad 
retinue marched slowly through the streets to the Odd Fellows' Ceme- 
tery. Among the multitude were numerous Germans, who had become 
much attached to Lippard for his persistent and fearless advocacy of Land 
Reform. 

The funeral services were beautifully impressive. They were in 
accordance with the ritual of the Brotherhood, written by Lippard him- 
self, and abounding in those sweet touches of eloquence, pathos. Chris- 
tian trust, and resignation that he loved so well to write with a fond, 
lingering pen. The service was read by E. W. G. Greene, Esq. A 
ritual of sepulture was also said in German, out of respect to the large 
body of those present who understood that language ; a prayer was read 
by a clergyman of the Episcopal Church — and all that was perishable of 
Lippard was consigned to the tomb. His remains, after reposing for 
some days in the receiving vault, were buried in the Odd Fellows' Ceme- 
tery. 



Various suggestions have been made by the friends and admirers of 



126 SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING A MONUMENT* 

Lippard relative to the erection of a worthy monument to his memory. 
We are not aware that any concerted effort has ever been put on foot for 
this end. It only needs some decided action, we are sure, on the part 
of the Brotherhood of the Union, for example, to raise a sufficient amount 
— -and that speedily — -for the monument. It should be built by contribu- 
tions, and no sum of money however small should be disdainfully re- 
ceived. The requisite means could be raised from the mites and pennies 
of men in humble life — poor men — to whom Lippard devoted the best 
labors of his pen and tongue. His whole life was a battle for them. He 
fought a running fight for the poor and the oppressed, beginning with 
his " Quaker City," clear down through long files of books, to his last 
blasting denunciation of human tyranny and his eloquent defense of white 
labor in " Eleanor." He waged the contest single-handed, from pillar to 
post, against all comers. No wrong was so hoary and wrinkled as to ex- 
tort his veneration, no sanctimonious swindle so smooth and buttery as 
to mitigate his undying hatred, no wealth so great as to shield meanness 
and avarice from the burning shafts of his sarcastic wit. He was ever, 
in season and out of season, through all changes of personal fortune, the 
relentless foe of kingcraft, priestcraft, and a mere moneyed aristocracy. 
These enemies of mankind were his enemies ; he was only too glad to 
take the quarrels of the whole world on his single hands. His labors in 
this wise took mostly a practical direction. He was in favor of giving 
public lands to actual settlers, of limiting the amount of land tenable by 
any one owner to a given number of acres ; and of associating labor to- 
gether, not in opposition to capital, but so that it should be, and should 
develop, its own capital. These maxims, as we have shown, are the 
basis of the Brotherhood of the Union, and constitute the back-bone — the 
grand, radiating principle — of all our author's writings. 

Mr. Lippard's memory demaiids, and should receive, a tribute from the 
lovers of our country. No man living has done more to vindicate the 
glories of our early statesmen and soldiers, and awake a spirit of patriotism 
in the popular heart. Many men have stirred up a temporary excitement 
more tempestuous, perhaps, than Lippard ever did. He worked silently. 
He was in heart and soul an author. He did not labor for the passing 
applause of his fellow-men. He was not intoxicated with cheers. As a 
popular orator he might have achieved a high success. The populace 
would have delighted to have crowned him with wreaths, and borne him 
triumphantly on their shoulders to the goal of political success. But 
Lippard wrote and spoke because his deep, earnest soul was in his work. 
He adored his country. He hated — passionately hated — whosoever raised 



SIS BOOKS AND THE FUTURE. 127 

his parricidal hand against it. He revered — he worshiped — the char- 
acter of Washington and his compatriots of the sword and the pen. He 
glowed with pride as he pondered — with an enthusiasm as warm in his 
manhood as in his youth — upon the splendid victories of the Revolution. 
He went in fancy with our brave array to the banks of the Rio Grande 
and partook of the glory of our successes. He had a grandly poetical 
conception of our country's mission. He believed America to be the 
" Palestine of redeemed Labor," given by God for that end, " sacred from 
the craft of the priest or the power of the king^' — in the language of 
Adonai, the pilgrim of eternity, " the last altar of human Brotherhood — the 
scene of God's last experiment with the human race — such is the New 
World." The inspiration of this idea gave to all of Lippard's writings 
upon labor great moral grandeur and force. His love of country was so 
closely wound up with religion that you can hardly tell where the one 
ends and the other begins. This joint-doctrine he would have carried 
into the pulpit had he ever gone there — and a very strange and popular 
religion it would have been. Many persons who read this brief memoir 
will remember how they gained their first notions of a true and exalted 
patriotism from Lippard's books. They will remember how the burning 
sentences of his " Washington and his Generals" kindled a love of coun- 
try, perhaps never before lighted in their breasts, into a flame. They 
will remember with delight his " Legends of Mexico," full of the very 
passion of patriotism. They will remember the beautiful philosophy of 
the story of Adonai, in "The White Banner," a sort of prose poem, in 
which the author chants the song of redeemed labor — the place of its 
redemption, America. 

But though Lippard's memory deserves a monument, it bids fair to live 
without one. His best monument is his books and his acts. His books and 
his acts, though fused in the furnace-heat of his brain, and poured hot upon 
the paper till it smoked, contain much of genius, eloquence, and, above all, 
honesty of thought, that the " world will not willingly let die." In writ- 
ing his " Legends of the Revolution," he entered upon a field then unoccu- 
pied. Those who have followed in his footsteps have found little to glean. 
He monopolized that kind and style of writing. He has no rivals, no 
imitators even, that amount to any thing. As time lends a still deeper 
interest to every thing concerning the Heroes of the Revolution, Lip- 
pard's strange " Legends" will be turned to with a still greater zest than 
now. It is not likely that the style in which they are written will 
" take" with the critics of the next century any better than with those of 
tlie present. But Lippard did not write for the critics, nor look to (hem 



128 THE FUTUEE AND BROTHERHOOD. 

as the official guardians of his fame. We belie*\{e, however, that his un- 
doubted and original genius will be admitted by the censors of literature- 
hereafter more fully than it now is. The public — to whom alone he al- 
ways addressed himself — will, we think, take care of the fame confided 
to their keeping. VVe know that his death gave a decided impulse to the 
sale of his books. His "Upper Ten and Lower Million," published in 
Cincinnati, appeared only a few weeks before his decease, and met with 
a prompt and extensive sale. We understand that thirty thousand copies 
of his " Quaker City" are now regularly sold, and have been every year 
since its publication. 

But Lippard's memory is likely to be perpetuated in another way, as 
the S. W. of the Brotherhood of the Union. There is a great deal of 
genius wrapped upin its ritual that the world knows not of. The plan 
of the order is beautiful ; the degrees are impressive, instructive, and 
worthy to be attained ; the language in which the whole is clothed is 
singularly poetical a^nd chaste. The Religion of Christ, Patriotism, Hu- 
manity, combine to give life to the purposes of the order, and as long as 
the soul of man yearns toward them, the Brotherhood, it is probable, will 
be a favorite instrument of moral and social elevation in the hands of the 
people. 






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